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WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

of 
TAN AND TECKLE 




» 



CHARLES LEE BRYSON'S 
NATURE STORIES 



WOODSY NEIGHBORS OF 
TAN AND TECKLE 

Further adventures of Tan and Teckle 
and their tiny neighbors in field and 
forest. The author succeeds in fascina- 
ting children with his tales of minute 
creatures as "Uncle Remus" has done 
with his Bre'r Rabbit, Bre'r Fox and 
other animals of the woods. 

TAN AND TECKLE 

As the Denver Post says: "Tan and 
Teckle is but a live wire of interest 
which connects all human children big 
and little, with those millions of other 
children of the soil whose rights on 
earth are far better than ours." 



Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull 
Each I2ni0) cloth, - - net $1.25 




THE RABBIT WAS RUNNING WITH EVERY NERVE IN HIS BODY 
STRAINED ALMOST TO THE BREAKING POINT " (See page 41) 



IVoodsy Neighbours 



of 



Tan and Teckle 



By 
CHARLES LEE BRYSON 

Illustrated by 
CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revel I Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1911, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 




New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 



4J.2.S 



<gCI.A3<)3590 




To 
MlNNETTA 

the little girl who first heard 
and loved these stories 




U t //£* 





PREFACE 



SO many kind messages have come to me, 
especially from young folks, regarding 
" Tan and Teckle," the book issued three 
years ago, that I feel sure of a welcome at least 
from the children for this, a second series of 
stories about the little wild people of meadow, 
field and woodland. 

The basis of all these stories is my experi- 
ence as one of the three barefoot boys on the 
old farm in Southern Indiana, when nothing 
that lived was too small and despised to excite 
curiosity, and curiosity gratified never failed 
to reveal some new trait — new to us, at least 
— of bird or reptile or insect. This founda- 
tion was, of course, built upon by later read- 
ing and study. 



8 



PREFACE 



The stories are meant especially for young 
folks, for I feel sure that if the little ones be- 
come interested in even the simple things re- 
lated here, a foundation will be laid for many 
a delightful hour when they come to watch 
on their own account how the spider works, 
the cricket fiddles, the caterpillar spins and 
the moth comes forth from his cocoon. 

There is so much that every day passes un- 
noticed right under our eyes, and so much is 
yet to be learned of the lives of our tiny 
neighbours that live near the ground, that no 
child ever need be lonely or idle so long as 
there is an ant or a fly or a bee or a spider 
that he can watch. These little stories are 
not meant to be lessons in natural history so 
much as to call the attention of the young 
folks to things so easy to see 
but so often neglected, and to 
set them to observing and 
studying and experimenting 
for themselves. 

C. L. B. 

Denver, Col. 









CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 
I. 


A Strange Flyer 


PAGE 
• 13 


II. 


The New Musician 


• 23 


III. 


The Woods Rabbit . 


• 35 


IV. 


The Silk Maker . 


• 47 


V. 


A Weird Laugh . 


■ 58 


VI. 


The Cannibal's Fate 


7i 


VII. 


A Living Nest 


83 


VIII. 


The Minnow 


96 


IX. 


An Unpleasant Neighbour 


106 


X. 


The Acrobat . 


116 


XL 


The Mournful Singer 


126 


XII. 


Old Croaker's Cousin 


135 


XIII. 


The Soil Maker . 


148 



10 



CONTENTS 



XIV. 


Striped Face . 


i59 


XV. 


The Scourge of Man 


171 


XVI. 


The Walking Stone . 


185 


XVII. 


Another Killer 


i97 


XVIII. 


A New Way to Fly . 


208 


XIX. 


Snake or Fish ? . 


219 


XX. 


The Carpenter . 


. 229 


XXL 


The Black Sheep 


241 


XXII. 


The Bird Who Doesn't Care 


■ 253 


XXIII. 


Supper Time and Bedtime 


265 


XXIV. 


Winter at Last 


275 








ILLUSTRATIONS 



u The Rabbit was Running with Every 

Nerve in His Body Strained Al- . 

most to the Breaking Point " . Facing Title r 

A Strange Flyer .... 

The New Musician 

The Woods Rabbit 

The Silk Maker .... 

A Weird Laugh .... 

" Tan Had Never Had a More Nar- 
row Escape " 

The Cannibal's Fate 

A Living Nest .... 

" He Pricked Up His Ears and Lis- 
tened "..... 

The Minnow .96 

An Unpleasant Neighbour . . . .106 

" He Found a Hen Roosting on the 
Fence away from the Poultry- 
House — Two Hens in Fact" . Facing no 



13 

23 
35 
47 
58 

68 

. . 83 

Facing 86 



Facing 



11 



12 ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

The Acrobat . . . . . . .116 

The Mournful Singer . . . . .126 

Old Croaker's Cousin 135 

" She Brought Her Little Ones 

Down for Their First Swim " . Facing 1 38 

The Soil Maker 148 

Striped Face . . . . . . .159 

" Another Trick He Learned was to 
Climb into a Tree from the Top 
of a Fence" .... Facing 1701/ 

The Scourge of Man 171 

The Walking Stone 185 

Another Killer . . . . . . 197 

" Fairly Hurled Himself into the 

Water" . . . . . Facing 198 

A New Way to Fly 208 

Snake or Fish? 219 

The Carpenter 229 

The Black Sheep 241 

The Bird Who Doesn't Care . . . .253 

" And You Never Will See Them Do 
Anything like Work," went on 
the Buzzard .... Facing 254 

Supper Time and Bedtime .... 265 

Winter at Last 275 





A STRANGE FLYER 

SOMETHING that looked ^^Aftg; 
like a piece of bark dropped ^& v \ 
from the top of the tall, dead 
snag of a poplar tree on the bank of Nineveh 
creek, and fell towards the ground. Yet it did 
not fall as a piece of bark would. Everybody 
who has seen bark drop from a dead tree 
knows that it falls swiftly and straight to the 
ground, sometimes turning edgewise and some- 
times turning over and over, but always falling 
faster and faster until it strikes with a thump. 
This did not. It did not turn edgewise, it 

did not turn over and over, and its speed did 

13 



14 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

not increase. Neither did it strike the ground 
with a thump that could be heard. No, it 
started from the tree with its flat side towards 
the ground, and sailed away at an angle, 
finally striking the trunk of a maple tree not 
far from the ground, and disappearing. As- 
suredly it did not fall to the ground. 

Now there was no wind stirring which could 
have blown it to one side. The evening was 
perfectly still. So Tan and Teckle, the pair 
of little field-mice who dwelt in the old oak 
stump on the bank of Pleasant Run brook, 
just above where it flows into Nineveh creek, 
sat motionless in their doorway and won- 
dered. 

Presently a second object, looking like an- 
other piece of dead bark, dropped from the 
top of the old poplar snag. This, too, did 
not fall directly to the ground, but kept one 
flat side towards the earth and sailed away. 
Neither did it take the same direction as the 
first, but went quite the opposite way. So of 
course it could not have been the wind that 
blew them aside, for it would have blown 



A STRANGE FLYER 15 

them both in the same direction. This one, 
also, seemed to strike against a tree trunk and 
noiselessly vanish. Then in rapid succession 
several more of these strange objects shot out 
from the top of the old poplar snag as if 
they had been thrown forcibly away from it, 
and sailed away in various directions. 

It was strange, and the timid little field- 
mice had long ago learned to look with sus- 
picion upon anything strange. The unfamil- 
iar so often proved to be dangerous. They 
were afraid of strange forms that seemed to 
fall and yet never touched the ground and 
never made any noise. So they ran back 
into the depths of their hollow stump to ask 
their cousin the bat who always slept in their 
stump by day. He was still hanging by his 
hind claws with his head down, just as he 
always slept, but he was now awake and just 
ready to fly out and make his dinner off the 
insects that flew about in the twilight. It 
was very early in the fall, and there were still 
plenty of insects for him to eat. 

" Flying squirrels," said the bat, when they 



16 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

had told him of the strange things they had 
seen. " How does it happen that you have 
never seen them before ? No, they do not 
really fly as I do. They cannot fly upward 
because they cannot flap their wings — indeed 
they have no true wings, but merely flaps of 
loose skin stretched between their front and 
their hind legs. They leap from a tree, spread 
out all four legs so as to stretch this loose 
skin, and they sail downward at an angle, 
turning to either side as they choose. They 
oughtn't to call that flying, for all they can do 
is to sail downward, or sail upward for just a 
little way when they get a good speed. Now 
I'll show you how real flying is done." 

So the bat climbed out on top of the hollow 
stump, hobbled awkwardly to the edge and 
flapped away, and sure enough he was soon 
soaring and diving and flapping and leaping 
in the air above their heads. He flew as well 
as any bird, and a great deal better than many 
birds, though he is built so differently. 

But Tan and Teckle were greatly interested 
in the flying squirrels. Now that they knew 



A STRANGE FLYER 17 

there was no danger, they watched evening 
after evening, for so long as the warm weather 
lasted the squirrels came out as soon as it was 
dusk and played all over the woodland. One 
night while Tan and Teckle sat at one of their 
doorways watching the squirrels racing about 
among the trees, one of the strange little 
fellows sailed down and alighted on the side 
of the stump quite near them. 

" May you never know fear, Brother," said 
Tan, politely. 

" A dry nest and plenty of nuts," was the 
greeting of the other. 

Then Tan made bold to ask the squirrel 
how it was that, having no wings, he could 
fly so well ; and whether it was not very 
dangerous. And while he rested the little 
stranger told much about the merry lives led 
by the flying squirrels. 

" Dangerous? " he replied in a tone of sur- 
prise. " Of course it is not dangerous. All 
one has to do is just to leap forth and spread 
the legs as far as they will go. Then you just 
naturally fly anywhere you wish. I have no 



18 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

doubt you could do it very well yourself if 
you would only try. Be sure you climb high 
before you leap, so that you will have a long 
way to sail. How could you think it danger- 
ous ?" 

But the field-mice knew better than to 
make any attempts at flying. They asked 
the flying squirrel if that was all one family 
playing together among the trees. 

" Oh, no, not all one family. Dear me, no. 
My mate and I had in our nest only as many 
little ones as there are claws on one foot, 
and one more. We have not all of them 
now. One fell a trifle short when he was 
just learning to fly, and dropped to the 
ground and a red fox got him. I was never 
quite certain, but I think an owl got the 
second, though nobody saw what became of 
him. The others we still have. Our nest 
w r as in a hollow elm deep in the wood 
but a storm blew it down not long ago, so 
we have all come down here to the old pop- 
lar snag for the winter. We are filling it 
with nuts and corn, and when it gets cold 



A STRANGE FLYER 19 

we will all climb in there and sleep to- 
gether. 

" No, indeed, we do not sleep all winter 
long like the bat. I think he is a lazy fellow. 
In the summer-time he sleeps all day and 
every day, and in the winter he sleeps day 
and night all the time. And such an un- 
comfortable way to sleep, too, holding on just 
by his hind claws and with his head hanging 
down. It looks lazy, and it must be lazy. 
Now a squirrel curls himself up into a little 
ball with his nose between his paws, rolls 
his tail about him, and sleeps like a respecta- 
ble animal in his bed. 

" And the lazy bat doesn't get enough sleep 
even when he hangs himself up by the heels 
every day in the summer, but he must hang 
himself up for all winter too, and sleep until 
warm weather without once waking and eat- 
ing. I know, he says it is because there are 
no insects for him to eat in the winter. Then 
why doesn't he store them up in the summer 
when there are plenty ? I think he sleeps all 
winter just to keep from work. 



20 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

" Now a squirrel does not believe in so 
much idleness. We gather nuts and corn in 
the fall, and store it in some large hollow 
tree, and when cold weather comes we all 
climb in together and go to sleep. Of course 
we have made a big bed of leaves, and as there 
are so many of us together in a cozy, dark 
nest, we all lie cuddled up and are very com- 
fortable. And often through the winter, 
when warm days come, we wake up and eat 
of the nuts we have stored. When spring 
comes we are all lively, and quite ready to 
get out and eat the buds and leaves, and find 
summer nests and bring up our little ones." 

Tan wanted to know more about the art of 
flying, and whether it were true, as the bat 
had said, that flying squirrels could only sail 
downward, and could not fly upward at all. 

" No, we do not fly upward as the bat 
does," replied the squirrel, " but what is the 
use? I think he looks very awkward flap- 
ping around up there making believe he is a 
bird. Now we sail down gracefully from the 
top of one tree to the foot of another, run 



A STRANGE FLYER 



Zi 



up to the top of that and leap out again. 
What is the use of flying upward when it is 
so easy to climb a tree ? Now it is all very 
well for the bat who has to fly up ; it w T ould 
take him at least a moon to climb a tree, I'm 
sure." 

Which was very probably true. 

" See there ! " exclaimed the squirrel as a 
lithe little form went sailing over their heads, 
" that is n^ mate. She can fly as far as from 
here to Nineveh creek without once alight- 
ing. And so graceful she is. Why, I remem- 
ber once " 

But what it was he remembered the field- 
mice were never to hear. Just then rang out 
through the w r oodland the dreaded " Whoo- 
00-00 ! Whoo-oo-oo ! " of a great owl. He 
had alighted so softly upon the dead limb of 
a tree near by that the little people had 
neither seen nor heard him. 

Startled by the terrible sound, Tan and 
Teckle sprang through the doorway of their 
home and fled to the innermost recesses of 
the hollow stump. If the flying squirrel had 



22 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

followed them he would have been safe, for 
there was a hole large enough for him to 
enter. But he was so frightened that he 
never thought of that. He made a wild 
scramble for the top of the stump to take a 
flying leap to the nearest tree. The instant 
there was a movement the great owl was 
aware of it, and he sprang for the spot. The 
little squirrel reached the top of the stump 
and was just making his leap for the tree 
when the owl reached him. Out from the 
mass of feathers shot a great, taloned foot, 
and with one last, despairing squeak the fly- 
ing squirrel was carried away. 

Safe in their nest in the middle of the 
strong old oak stump, Tan and Teckle told each 
other that while it might be very fine to be able 
to fly, and climb trees and do all the other 
things that the flying squirrel could do, it 
was much better to stay near the ground 
and be safe. 




THE NEW MUSICIAN 

MUSIC was never want- 
ing in that particular 
corner of the great 
old Bradley farm where Tan 
and Teckle lived. Much of the time in sum- 
mer the wind was bus} r rustling and whisper- 
ing quiet strains among the leaves, and in 
winter making harps of the bare branches 
and twigs on which it played weird melodies. 
To one who loves the out-of-doors the tunes 
the wind plays are music enough, even if 
there were no other. 

But this was by no means all the music 
23 



24 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

there. Birds lived in the woodland in great 
numbers. The fat robins who nested near 
the farmhouse or in the open maple sugar 
grove often came that far in their search for 
food, and always sang at their task. Blue- 
birds, with nests in hollow limbs of trees, or 
in knot-holes in the fences, or as sometimes 
happened, in the pin-hole of a gate-post, 
warbled their odd little tunes. Oriole and 
brown thrush and meadow lark and stammer- 
ing cuckoo whistled and chanted and trilled 
and called from swaying branch or treetop or 
fence stake or covert. 

Most of these daylight sounds were familiar 
to the little field-mice, but at night there was 
an entire change of program and a new set of 
musicians, except of course the wind. And 
these who played by night they did not know 
so well. The strong voice of Old Croaker the 
toad they knew, for they had seen him at his 
sleepy singing. The terrible cry of the great 
owl they had heard, though they by no means 
considered it music. The high, constant trill 
of small frogs and young toads was also fa- 



THE NEW MUSICIAN 



zo 



miliar. But there was one other note in par- 
ticular, not unlike the trill of the frogs, 
which blended into the night chorus and 
puzzled them. 

Then one night they learned all about it. 
They were gathering nuts under the spread- 
ing beech tree that grew near their stump, for 
though it was still warm and sunny by day, 
it was growing cooler at night, and good old 
Mother Nature had whispered to them in 
her own way that cold winter would soon 
be there and they must prepare for it, for 
scratching in the snow for food would be 
dreary work. They were working in the 
shelter of an old log where they could not 
readily be seen by night prowlers, when right 
beside them, it seemed, sounded a shrill, rasp- 
ing cry. 

Dumb with terror, they crouched where 
they were and waited. This might be the 
call of some fierce meat eater who would 
pounce upon them and eat them on the spot 
if he spied them. They had learned that the 
safest thing to do under such circumstances is 



26 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

to sit perfectly still unless they were quite 
sure they had been seen. Often the wild 
thing would go away after a time, without 
having seen them at all. 

So they crouched beside the log, motionless, 
each with cheek pouches half filled with 
beechnuts, and waited for what might hap- 
pen. Nothing stirred! But presently came 
again that strange, piercing cry — two sharp, 
quick notes, then a stop. Two or sometimes 
three notes repeated, then another stop. After 
a few times the calls were kept up constantly, 
two or three together with slight pauses be- 
tween each set. Each trembling mouse 
glanced at the other, and neither was so 
frightened as at first. Surely this was not 
the cry of a meat eater. It was evidently a 
song of pleasure — most likely a love song to 
a mate. There was neither threat nor pain 
nor hunger nor anger in that call. They 
were reassured. 

The thing that puzzled them most was that 
they could not tell from which direction the 
call came, nor from how far away. Usually 



THE NEW MUSICIAN 27 

when any bird or other creature uttered a cry 
they could say with certainty, " It is in this 
direction, and about so far away." But this 
queer call was not easy to estimate. Some- 
times it seemed up in the tree, sometimes in the 
grass beside them. Sometimes it was back on 
the bank of the stream of Pleasant Run, some- 
times almost beneath their feet. They looked 
around in wonder, for not once had the crea- 
ture moved — of that they were sure. 

Finally Tan was emboldened to creep cau- 
tiously a little distance into the grass. In- 
stantly the call ceased, and although he lay 
perfectly still it was many breaths before the 
song of the stranger was renewed. When it 
sounded again it seemed right under Tan's 
feet, so that he was startled and almost leaped 
aside. But he held himself quiet, and looked 
keenly all about to discover the musician. 
Finally he spied him, clinging to a stem of 
grass only a short leap away. In form he 
was very like Cousin Gray, the dusty grass- 
hopper that Tan had known so well in the 
summer-time, } T et there was a difference. 



28 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

This stranger was the colour of the grass — 
Tan could tell that much even in the twilight. 
Instead of being short and heavy, like Cousin 
Gray, this musician was long and slender, and 
his feelers, which he kept waving all* about, 
were longer even than his body. His back 
had a peculiar angle, as if he were deformed ; 
and Tan wondered, as he looked, whether the 
back-bone had not been broken about the 
middle, and by some strange good luck had 
grown fast again, only not quite straight as it 
had been. 

Whatever it was that had made him hump- 
backed it did not seem to hurt him now, and 
it certainly did not seem to interfere with his 
music, for the notes came quick and steady 
now, with very short stops between each pair 
— the syllables which men say sound like 
" She-did, she-did, she-did, Katy-did, she-did." 

Yes, it was the Katydid, which belongs to 
the same family as Cousin Gray, the dusty 
old grasshopper. But Cousin Gray never was 
a musician. The only sound he ever made 
was the clattering of his wings when he made 






THE NEW MUSICIAN 29 

his irregular, up-and-down flight, or the pro- 
digious bumping and rustling he made when 
he landed clumsily on the ground or among 
the dry grass. But this was real music. Tan 
and Teckle listened delightedly while the 
new musician sent forth the shrill cry "She- 
did, she-did, she-did, Katy-did, she-did." 

Very certain now that nothing was to be 
feared from the stranger, Tan crept up to the 
grass stem on which the musician sat, and 
even plucked up courage to address him : 

" May you never know fear." 

Instantly the song ceased, and the Katydid 
edged around the grass stem ready for flight 
if there were danger. But the mice kept very 
quiet and he was soon reassured. 

11 May the grass be ever sweet and tender 
for you," he responded courteously. Each 
had wished the other what seemed to him the 
most desirable thing in life, which after all is 
true politeness. 

" We have often heard your music before, 
but never until to-night have I heard it near 
at hand, or known who it was that sang to us." 



30 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

This was Tan's way of asking what the 
stranger was called. 

" I am the Katydid," was the response, 
" but it must have been my brothers you 
heard before. I came very late from the egg, 
and this is my first music. Do you like it? 
Do you think it will win me a mate ? " 

Not for the world would Tan have given 
offense, even if he had not liked the music. 
But he had really been quite charmed by it — 
all mice are very fond of music — and he 
readily said so. Then he asked : 

" Is that a call to your mate? I have not 
heard her answer." 

11 She cannot answer," was the response. 
" She is silent. Only the males of our family 
can make any sound ; our mates must hear 
and come to us, for they cannot reply. I may 
be the very last one from the egg f and so I 
may never find a mate. Still, I am hoping 
that there is another almost as late as I, and 
that she will hear me and come, so I will 
play on." 

" You call it playing," remarked Teckle 



THE NEW MUSICIAN 31 

timidly. " Is it not a song, made with the 
voice?" 

" No. Very few insects make a noise with 
the mouth. I have a pair of little musical 
instruments of hard, bony substance, under 
each wing cover. When I lift my wing 
covers and make them quiver, these little 
bony plates rub against each other and make 
the music. All the males of the Green Grass- 
hopper family make this kind of music, and 
the crickets do the same. Always the music is 
made by the male, and when the female hears 
it, if she has not already a mate, she goes to 
him." 

The mice went on about their nut gathering, 
for every day now they had new warning that 
winter was coming, and nobody could tell how 
much food might be needed before warm 
weather came again, and there were beech 
sprouts to eat. Later in the evening, as they 
passed back and forth between the old log and 
their hollow stump, they saw that the musi- 
cian was no longer alone. Beside him on the 
grass stem clung another slender, green form, 



32 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and they knew that there really had been 
another Katydid late in hatching, and that 
their friend's music had not been in vain. 

Next evening before the bat left the stump 
for his twilight flight they told him about the 
new friend they had found. He assured them 
that all the little stranger had told them was 
true. 

" Katydid is really a close relative of the 
grasshopper," he said, " but he is much more 
agreeable. In the first place, he is very quiet 
and retiring, and you seldom see him unless 
you go hunting him, while the grasshopper 
goes everywhere and meddles with everything. 
Katydid is a lover of peace and quiet. He 
keeps out of the hot sun, sits quiet in the 
shade all day long, and at night he stays in 
the tall grass or on the leaves of the trees and 
bushes." 

" Will these two lay up a store of leaves and 
grass to last them through the winter?" in- 
quired the domestic Teckle. 

" No need. The first heavy frost will kill 
them both. But first the female will lay a 



THE NEW MUSICIAN 33 

great number of eggs along the edge of a leaf, 
or on a grass stem, or wherever she thinks the 
little ones will find good food when they hatch. 
Then her life-work is clone. Next summer the 
little Katydids will hatch, creep out of the 
eggs, drop into the grass and begin to eat. 
They have nothing to do but eat and grow, 
and in the late summer mate and lay eggs, 
for they live only a single season." 

" What was that story a butterfly once told 
me about his living one summer as a worm, 
going to sleep in the fall, and waking the next 
summer with wings?" demanded Tan, who 
was beginning to doubt. 

11 That tale is all perfectly true, Little 
Brother. Some time you will see it happen 
if you watch. Some of the butterflies spend 
the winter in the egg, some spend it in the 
half-way stage of their lives. But it is true 
that they all come from caterpillars — not 
worms, caterpillars — and there is a great differ- 
ence. 

11 But I must get something to eat and lay 
on more flesh, for soon it will be cold weather 



34 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and I will have to hang myself np in a cave 
or hollow tree for my winter's sleep. And it 
is never well for a bat to go lean and hungry 
into a sleep that must last for many moons." 
So the bat scrambled out on top of the 
stump, and flapped silently away into the 
dusk, darting here and there among the 
swarms of insects which flew about in little 
whirling clouds. He was right, it would not 
be long until the cold would come and kill 
them. 




ft' ' \ Ate C^'V *V ?/ ' ::-'' 

JJ/ ; /, V\ ^ : ^ T ; ;- l J| L ^fe, ; :; :: .---^ -n 

Ml 



£^?&%3 



THE WOODS RABBIT 




IT was a bright, moonlight^, .^ 
night. Down through the 
open spaces between the 
trees poured the soft light, 
glinting on the glazed surfaces 
of fallen leaves, reflected brilliantly from the 
running waters of Pleasant Run brook and 
Nineveh creek, allowing darkness only in the 
densest parts of the wood, and in the shadow 
of huge tree trunks and in the lee of fallen 
timber. 

Along the bank of Nineveh creek came a 

grayish form, hopping along with a curious 

35 



36 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

gait, moving with great caution and making 
no noise except the rustling when it trod upon 
a dry leaf. Every few paces it stopped, sat 
up on its haunches, turned its long ears in- 
quiringly this way and that, wrinkled its 
blunt nose and sniffed suspiciously, and 
looked all about with large, round, staring 
eyes. When neither ears, nose nor eyes 
warned it of danger, it hopped on a few paces 
farther, stopped again, and once more surveyed 
everything around. 

Almost anybody could have told at a glance 
that it was a rabbit. Only the three boys on 
the Bradley farm, or a few others here and 
there who had been through the same ex- 
periences they had known, would have said 
that this rabbit was the least bit differ- 
ent from any other " cottontail." The boys 
would have told you that it was a " woods 
rabbit." 

That is the name the boys themselves gave 
to that particular kind of rabbit. The name 
probably will not be found in any book about 
animals. The boys themselves never knew, 



THE WOODS RABBIT 37 

and never could wholly agree among them- 
selves, whether a woods rabbit was really a 
different species from the ordinary rabbit, but 
they knew that, at any rate, the individuals 
were different. It may well be that woods 
rabbits are just ordinary rabbits, grown wilder 
and stronger and more wary and a little dif- 
ferent in colour since they live so much by 
themselves and adopt different habits from 
the rest of the family. 

However it comes about, the three boys 
would have told you that what they called a 
woods rabbit lives always in the woodlands, 
and not in the open fields and meadows. He 
is usually larger than other rabbits, and is 
stronger and swifter. His gray coat has a 
reddish tinge — the boys said this was to make 
him look more like dead leaves and decaying 
logs, and render him more difficult to distin- 
guish. Also the woods rabbit is very wary as 
well as fleet of foot, and when he hears any 
one coming he usually gets out from behind 
the log, or from under the bit of brush where 
he hides, and is far away and running like a 



38 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

deer long before a boy with a gun can get 
within shooting distance. Another vexing 
habit — vexing for boys with guns — is that the 
woods rabbit runs a long distance when once 
he is aroused, whereas a cottontail will run a 
little way and sit down, or if a boy or a dog 
chases him he will describe a circle and come 
back before long almost to the place where he 
started. 

This woods rabbit had been out to supper. 
He knew of an orchard, away up Nineveh 
creek, where plenty of apples had fallen to 
the ground and nobody had troubled to 
pick them up. A house had once stood 
near, but it had burned, and a new one 
had not been built, and the man who used 
to live there paid very little attention to the 
orchard. The little wild people got almost 
all the fruit. 

On his way back from the orchard the woods 
rabbit had stopped under a red haw tree and 
had enjoyed the flavour of the tiny fruit, so 
much like an apple and yet with such a differ- 
ent flavour. Now he was on his way back to 



THE WOODS RABBIT 39 

the decaying log under which he usually 
spent his days, away down the creek, below 
where Tan and Teckle lived in their great 
oak stump, and farther even than the place 
where Pleasant Run brook flowed into Nine- 
veh creek. It was a very large log, so badly 
decayed that many pieces had fallen from it, 
so that the woods rabbit looked exactly like a 
piece of the log as he sat under it. One end 
of the log lay across another so that it was 
held a little way above the ground, and the 
woods rabbit could run in either direction and 
have the log between him and whatever 
danger was approaching. Oh, the woods 
rabbit was wise, and had chosen h~s resting 
place with much cunning. 

On his way back from the orchard the woods 
rabbit was in no haste, for it was long until 
morning, and he preferred to do all his travel- 
ling and feeding at night. So he paused fre- 
quently to look about, and to enjoy the perfect 
night. He hopped aside to nibble at a pawpaw 
which had fallen from the tree without wait- 
ing for the frost — or perhaps a greedy opossum, 



40 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

too impatient to wait until it was ripe, had 
climbed the tree and knocked it to the ground. 
Daintily the rabbit nibbled at the soft fruit, 
and then from force of habit, sat up to look 
around. All rabbits do that. It is a trick 
they have inherited from their fathers and 
grandfathers and great-grandfathers for thou- 
sands of generations back. Only the rabbits 
who constantly sit up to look around are left 
alive long enough to rear families, and so it is 
that all rabbits inherit this instinct to watch 
for danger all the time. 

As he lifted his head the woods rabbit 
heard something that made him forget the 
pawpaw and sit up very straight indeed. He 
heard the patter of feet on dry leaves. He 
was sitting where he could look back over the 
way he had just come ; and away back, along 
the creek bank, in a very bright patch of 
moonlight, he saw a lank, yellowish form gal- 
loping along with nose to the earth, following 
his trail. It was a red fox. 

No need to tell a woods rabbit what to do. 
He dropped his long ears back on his shoul- 



THE WOODS RABBIT 41 

ders, leaped five times his own length for a 
starter, and tore away down the bank of the 
creek with all the speed he had. And a 
woods rabbit is no poor runner when he is 
frightened. Of course when he set out to 
make speed the poor rabbit had no time to 
choose his steps and run softly, and the fox 
heard him the very first leap he made. Then 
the fox saw him, and with his long, keen 
nose shoved hungrily out, and his bushy tail 
standing very straight out behind, he went 
skimming over the ground in pursuit. The 
fox had his prey in plain sight, and he knew 
that he would soon have supper unless the 
rabbit could quickly reach a hiding-place from 
which he could not be digged out. For he 
could not only run faster than the rabbit, but 
he could keep up the pace much longer. 

The fox steadily gained upon his quarry, 
and in a little while he was only a few leaps 
behind. With eyes distended and nostrils 
strained wide, the rabbit was running with 
every nerve in his body strained almost to the 
breaking point. As he struck the ground 



42 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

after every leap his hind feet, held wide apart, 
overreached his fore feet, making the peculiar 
triangular rabbit track of which the two for- 
ward impressions, indicating the direction the 
rabbit is running, are really made by the hind 
feet. Just ahead, if he could only reach it, was 
a place where he hoped to gain an advantage 
over the fox. He knew where lay a large 
fallen sycamore tree, hollow for its entire 
length. And the hole at the farther end was 
so small that perhaps the fox could not fol- 
low him through. The rabbit had made use 
of this log once when the boys and their dogs 
chased him, and he had tricked them neatly 
and got entirely away before they knew that 
he had not stopped in the log. ♦ 

When the fox was almost upon him the 
woods rabbit leaped into the hollow log and ran 
with all his might to the other end, and 
squeezed himself out through the small hole. 
The fox followed him into the log, and as the 
rabbit had hoped, found the hole at the other 
end too small to allow him to pass through, so 
he had to back out and go around. He saw 



THE WOODS RABBIT 43 

that he had been tricked, but he took up the 
chase again, knowing that he could soon over- 
take the rabbit a second time. 

Again the fox came nearer and nearer. 
The rabbit was now almost bursting with the 
pressure of the blood which his frightened 
and overworked heart pumped with terrific 
force through his arteries, and his lungs were 
working hard to supply fresh air to his over- 
heated blood. Yet he did not dare slacken 
his pace in the least, for the place of safety he 
had in mind was still some distance away. 
It was an ash tree, hollow from the ground a 
long way up, and with a hole between the 
roots just large enough to admit him. He 
knew, for he had once taken refuge there 
when a big owl tried to catch him. 

This ash tree stood quite near the old water 
gate across Pleasant Run which Tan and 
Teckle used as a bridge. Teckle was just 
coming home from a visit to the old corn field 
when she heard the patter of footsteps, and an 
instant later saw the woods rabbit running for 
life directly toward where she stood. She 



44 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



had not time to see what else was happening 
when the rabbit leaped past her and crept 
into the hollow of the ash tree. 

" Run, little one, run ! " he gasped as he 
leaped by, and without waiting to learn why 
she must run, she leaped into the hollow tree 
after the rabbit, just as the fox thrust his 
long, cruel muzzle inside and sniffed. Yes, 
the woods rabbit was safe for that time, and 
so was the little mouse which the fox would 
not have despised if he could have caught her. 

A rabbit cannot climb a tree any more than 
a dog can — on the outside. But when a 
rabbit gets inside a hollow tree, if it is not so 
large a hollow but he can brace his back 
against the farther side, he can climb as high 
as the hollow reaches if it is large enough to 
admit his body. So the woods rabbit climbed 
and climbed until the hollow grew so small 
that he could scarcely get his breath. There 
he stopped and rested his tired legs, and got 
his breath again. Teckle had run into a tiny 
hole in one of the roots of the tree, and was 
safe. 



THE WOODS RABBIT 45 

The fox sniffed hungrily at the hollow tree, 
and then sat down and whined. He wanted 
his supper. But just then he heard some- 
thing that took his mind off his appetite. 
From away, away up Nineveh creek came a 
long, clear call, very faint and far away, but 
not to be mistaken — " O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o I " 
Then another in a different key. Then two 
others at once. It was so clear, yet so distant 
and so faint, that it would have sounded 
beautiful to one who did not know what it 
was. 

But the fox knew. It was the pack of 
hounds which the three boys on the Bradley 
farm kept, and they were on his trail, following 
him just as he had followed the rabbit. The 
boys did not ride to hounds, but the hounds 
loved to chase foxes of their own accord, and 
often they were joined by other hounds from 
other farms in the neighbourhood, and they 
had a merry chase that lasted sometimes as 
long as two days and nights. It usually 
ended in the fox taking to a hole in 
the rocks, after which the hounds would go 



46 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

home, but it was great sport for them while it 
lasted. 

As the baying came nearer the fox sniffed 
once more at the hole in the ash tree, and set 
out down the creek at a smart gallop, casting 
about in his shrewd mind for a plan to baffle 
the hounds as the woods rabbit had baffled 
him. 





THE SILK MAKER 

NIGHT after night Tan and 
Teckle, the little field-mice, 
gathered a store of nuts to 
last them through the winter, and added 
wool, and hair, and feathers, and grass and 
moss to their nest to make it warmer. They 
were very anxious about the long, cold nights 
to come, for they had never seen a winter. 
And they were much surprised that their 
cousin the bat, who slept by day hanging up 
in their own hollow stump, never made any 
preparation for winter. They had heard him 

say that he slept all winter, and the flying 

47 



48 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

squirrel had said the same thing, but they 
could not understand how he hoped to go 
without food all winter, and be alive in the 
spring. So one evening they asked him 
about it. 

" Of course I sleep all winter and awaken 
in the spring," he said. " Why should 
any one doubt it? It is ever so much 
easier and simpler than to put in all summer 
working just to eat in winter. That has 
always seemed so foolish. Why should I do 
that, when all I need to do is to hang myself 
up in some dark, quiet place, go to sleep, and 
not awaken again until it is warm and pleas- 
ant, and there are plenty of insects flying 
about ? " 

" But suppose you were to awaken in the 
middle of the winter, cold and hungry ? " 
asked the timid Teckle. 

" But I never do. You could scarcely 
awaken me if you tried, and you certainly 
could not keep me awake. I remember once 
a fussy old squirrel climbed down into the 
hollow tree where I had hanged myself for 



THE SILK MAKER 49 

the winter, and knocked me from the wall. 
I roused just enough to fasten my claws back 
in the side of the tree and close my eyes 
again, and I knew no more until it was 
spring, and insects were flying, and I came 
forth feeling as well as if I had slept only a 
single day." 

" Do all the creatures in the world except 
just the mice sleep all the winter long?" 
This was Tan's question. 

" Not by any means. Snakes and frogs and 
toads do, and bats, and a very few of the large 
animals like the great bear. But most of the 
warm-blooded ones, and all the birds, are 
wide awake all winter. Some of the birds fly 
away to a place where it is never cold, and 
return in the spring. Others stay here and 
manage to get enough to eat. You will find 
that the owl does not sleep all winter, neither 
does he fly away to a warmer countiy." 

There was another matter on which Tan 
wanted some information. 

" I once heard a great hairy worm, in the 
warm weather, say that he was going to sleep 



50 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

soon, and that when he awakened in the 
warm days he would have large, splendid 
wings and would fly like a bird." 

" He spoke the truth," asserted the bat. 
11 1 saw him making his winter bed of silk, 
and he was mixing the silk with the long 
hairs from his own body. And I know 
where he has hung himself for his winter's 
sleep, for I have seen his bed often. He will 
sleep all winter as soundly as I do myself, 
and in the warm days when he awakens he 
will really have a pair of beautiful wings, and 
can fly like a bird." 

It was a wonderful theme to the little mice, 
who knew nothing of the marvellous trans- 
formation that takes place in the life of the 
caterpillar, changing him from a lowly crea- 
ture, crawling on his stomach and eating 
leaves, to a splendid beauty, with gorgeously 
coloured wings, flying from flower to flower 
and sipping the honey from them. So the 
bat told them the story, and some of the 
strange things he had seen happen to these 
fascinating creatures. 



THE SILK MAKER 51 

" Man makes even some kinds of caterpil- 
lars work for him," said he. " He is the only 
animal that has tried to improve on good old 
Mother Nature, and wears a kind of false skin 
taken from others to keep him warm and dry. 
You wear your fur, the birds wear their 
feathers, the snakes and fishes wear their 
scales, the turtles wear their shells, and the 
insects wear their hard, bony outer cases. 
But man takes the hair of some animals, the 
skins of others, the fibre of plants, and even 
the winter beds of the poor caterpillar, and 
makes himself a false skin to keep out the 
cold and the snow and rain in winter, and the 
sun and heat in summer. 

11 Time was, long and long ago, before man 
began to do this, that his skin was thick and 
tough and his hair long and dense, and he 
needed a false skin no more than you do. 
Mother Nature gave him a hairy coat that 
was good enough. But he loved to be warmer 
in winter, so he began to put on the skins of 
other animals that he had killed. Then he 
learned how to make a kind of false skin by 



52 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

twisting long hairs and fibres together, and 
he ended by wearing this false covering all 
the time, winter and summer, 

" Mother Nature always takes away from 
us all the things that we do not use. When 
man began to wear false skins he no longer 
needed his thick skin and his own hairy coat, 
so they were taken from him. Now man is 
soft and tender, easily hurt, and he has no 
hair on his body. If he did not have a false 
skin to wear he would die of the cold. 

" The animals and birds that he has made 
his slaves and keeps around him are getting 
to be just like him. The ducks and geese and 
chickens and turkeys fly so little that now 
they can scarcely fly at alL The cow can 
scarcely run, and the horse is helpless and 
has to be cared for by man. I have even 
seen horses and dogs wearing false skins made 
for them by man." 

" Does man really compel the caterpillar to 
work for him ? " It was Tan who could not 
comprehend how that could be. 

" Indeed he does. He enslaves every bird 



THE SILK MAKER 53 

and every animal he can, and the caterpillar 
is one of his slaves. But I have never heard 
that he has ever yet succeeded in making a 
bat work for him." 

Now this was a trifle boastful on the part 
of the bat, for it would have puzzled him to 
tell when man had ever trfed to make him 
work, or what he could have done for man 
except to eat the insects as he already did. 
But of course the field-mice did not know 
this, and if they had known they were too 
afraid of wounding his feelings by reminding 
him of it. 

So the bat went on to tell them of the won- 
derful little silkworm — which is really no 
worm at all, but a caterpillar, which is a 
moth or butterfly before his wings have 
grown. 

There are several kinds of moths whose 
caterpillars spin silk which man uses to make 
his clothes, or " false skin " as the bat called 
it. The one that is most used was brought 
over to this country from China hundreds of 
years ago. The female moth lays her eggs in 



54 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

great numbers, and in a few weeks the little 
caterpillars hatch out. They are furnished by 
man with plenty of mulberry leaves to eat, 
for they will thrive on nothing else. They 
eat enormously, and grow very rapidly. 
Every few days they grow too large for their 
skins, so the old skin splits down the back 
when a new one has grown underneath, and 
the caterpillar takes off his skin as a child 
takes off his coat, or " false skin " as the bat 
would say. 

When at last the caterpillar has grown as 
large as he will ever be, he stops eating for a 
few hours, lies still and grows sleepy, and 
then spins himself a silken cocoon, or winter 
bed. He spins a thread of silk from his 
mouth just as a spider does from his spinner- 
ets, but the caterpillar makes a much stronger 
thread. This thread he winds round and 
round his body, never cutting it but leaving 
it all in one long thread. When he has used 
all the silk material he has, or when he 
thinks his bed is warm enough for the win- 
ter, he stops spinning and goes to sleep. 



THE SILK MAKER 55 

If let alone, the caterpillar awakens in the 
spring quite a different creature. Instead of 
being almost blind— a caterpillar can barely 
see enough to tell light from dark — the moth 
has a pair of large, brilliant eyes that see 
perfectly in the twilight or even in the dark- 
est night. Instead of creeping on his stomach 
and eating mulberry leaves, he spreads a pair 
of gorgeous wings and goes flying all over 
the woods and fields, seeking his mate, and 
playing with others of his kind. That is, he 
did all this before he became a slave to man. 
But as the bat said, old Mother Nature soon 
takes away from her children the things 
they do not use. Since man has reared the 
silkworm, the moth uses his wings so little 
that he can scarcely fly at all, and if this con- 
tinues, no doubt some day he will not be 
able to fly when he wishes. Then it will be but 
another step to his having no wings at all. 

As it is, very few of the caterpillars are 
allowed to sleep through the winter and 
awaken in the spring. Man has learned that 
when permitted to have their long sleep, and 



56 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

come forth with wings, they cut holes in the 
end of the winter bed, or cocoon, so that they 
can get out. This cutting spoils the silk, so 
that instead of unwinding in one long thread, 
it is cut into many short ones, which makes 
it much less useful to man. So man allows 
only a few each year to sleep through the 
winter and emerge with wings — -just enough 
to lay eggs and hatch another brood next 
year. All the others he kills in their sleep 
by plunging them into hot water. Then he 
unwinds the silk from them, all in one thread 
more than half a mile long. This is easily 
woven into silk cloth and made into all man- 
ner of clothing for man's use. For, as the 
bat said, man no longer has a thick skin 
and a heavy, hairy coat of his own, and must 
have clothes, or " false skins " to keep him 
warm. 

" Does the moth eat the leaves of the mul- 
berry tree ? " asked Teckle. 

" No, the moth does not eat at all. It has 
no mouth at all — or at least a mouth so 
poorly formed that it cannot eat. Some 



THE SILK MAKER 57 

kinds of moth have long tongues or tubes, 
through which they sip honey from flowers 
as butterflies do, but the silkworm moth 
does not. I do not know whether there was 
once a time when these moths could eat, 
and this power was taken from them be- 
cause they neglected to use it, or whether 
Mother Nature made them without mouths 
from the first. There are several cousins of 
the silkworm moth that do not eat at all." 

"How do they live?" 

" They live only a few days or a few hours. 
Just long enough to mate, and lay eggs for 
another brood of moths next year. Then 
they die. But I see the insects beginning to 
fly," and the bat was off, flying about over 
their heads getting his evening meal. 




A WEIRD LAUGH ^ifll 

NIGHT was coming on. The lljf|fl 
sun had set, and while there » t| 
was still a half-light in the open «f 
fields and meadows, it was quite dusky among 
the trees along the creek banks. The little 
birds and animals and insects that love the 
sunlight had all gone to their hiding places 
for the night, and the lovers of darkness were 
astir. The katydid was fiddling away among 
the leaves of the old beech tree. The cricket 
was chirping in the grass. The flying squir- 
rels were sailing back and forth, tobogganing 
from tree to tree. The woods rabbit was hop- 
ping cautiously in the direction of the old, 
abandoned orchard, and the raccoon was pad- 
dling in the waters of Nineveh creek after 

58 



A WEIRD LAUGH 59 

crawfish and minnows. The bark of the fox 
was heard on the far hills beyond the creek, 
and the hoot of the great owl rang through 
the woods now and then. 

Tan and Teckle, the little field-mice who 
lived in the old oak stump, were down at the 
water's edge of Pleasant Run brook, nibbling 
at the tender roots of the grass which grew 
green and^rank there. Their cousin the bat, 
who by day slept in the hollow of their 
stump, was also a night-lover, and was flap- 
ping about over their heads, feeding on the 
flying midges that swarmed in the warm 
evening air. 

The mice kept their eyes and ears open to 
all the myriad sounds and sights of the wood- 
land, for there were many meat eaters among 
the wild things that love the night, and not 
one of them would scorn to make a meal off 
a plump mouse, and just one breath of forge t- 
fulness might cost one of them his life. They 
knew the bark of the fox, but he was too far- 
away to be immediately dangerous. The 
owl's ciy they knew also, but he was still deep 



60 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

in the woods. The chirp of the insects and 
the trill of the frogs and the night music of 
various other wood dwellers came to them, but 
they noted nothing to give them alarm. So 
they went on nibbling at the grass. 

But there arose a strange cry, a shrill, trem- 
ulous, chuckling sound that they were sure 
they recognized. 

lt There come the boys ! " they exclaimed 
together. 

The cry did sound very like a boy's laugh, 
which they had once heard when the three 
boys of the Bradley farm tried to dig them 
out of their stump for the sport of seeing the 
sparrow hawk catch them. So the little field- 
mice ran into the tunnel which the muskrat 
had made beneath their stump, for they dared 
not climb up the bank to one of their own 
doors. The muskrat himself, being a night 
roamer, was out in the brook, swimming and 
diving and gathering roots for his dinner. 
But Old Croaker, the great, fat toad, was sit- 
ting just inside the tunnel, and to him they 
told their fears. He was awake, having 



A WEIRD LAUGH 61 

finished his day's sleep, or they would have 
had no easy task to get him to listen. He 
hopped to the mouth of the tunnel and sat at 
the water's edge, listening. 

Again sounded the queer, wavering cry, 
this time more like a whistle than a voice 
from a throat, whereat Old Croaker turned 
and stared hard at the trembling mice. 

" That is no boy," he declared solemnly ; 
11 but you would better keep out of his sight 
just the same." 

" But it sounds exactly like the terrible 
noise the boys make when they are pleased," 
insisted Tan, who thought he remembered a 
boy's laugh. 

11 Not at all. This is a deal softer and more 
musical — much more like my voice — but it is 
much more dangerous music to you. It 
depends on what they are doing whether you 
live or die when those boys catch you. They 
caught me once and let me go unhurt after 
they had tormented me a long while. I have 
known them catch birds and frogs and mice 
and all manner of wild things and let them 



62 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

go. Bat if ever that creature gets you there 
is never any getting away alive. That is an 
owl." 

The mice could scarcely believe that a call 
so different from the terrible hoot they knew 
so well could come from an owl, but Old 
Croaker solemnly declared that it was an 
owl's cry. 

" That's the screech owl, and he'd eat you 
just as quickly as the big owl would. Do you 
know how an owl eats mice?" 

Old Croaker had no nerves himself, and 
could not understand how such a subject 
might drive the timid little field-mice into 
spasms of fear. It was his own boast that he 
had once been caught and eaten by a snake. 
After he had been safely swallowed, those 
same three boys of the Bradley farm had 
killed the snake and cut him open to see how 
the toad had fared. And when they found 
him alive and unhurt they allowed him to go. 
Terrible as the subject of being eaten was to 
the mice, they were in a way fascinated by it, 
and begged Old Croaker to tell how an owl 



A WEIRD LAUGH 63 

manages. He had told them before that the 
snake swallows his prey whole. 

" The owl swallows his prey all in one piece 
when it is not too large," said the old toad, 
" but he does it differently from the snake. 
The owl first breaks all the bones of his victim 
with his beak. Then, if it is not too large, he 
swallows it whole. If it is too large, he tears 
it into pieces as large as he can manage, 
and swallows them. Afterwards he spits out 
the hair and bones and feathers in little 
pellets." 

" How large is this new meat eater that you 
call a screech owl ? " 

The mice were shivering with terror at the 
idea of having their bones broken and their 
bodies swallowed, but they wanted to know. 

" Oh, he's small. Not a bit larger than the 
sparrow hawk who had a nest near here in the 
summer. You remember him, surely." 

Of course they remembered Spa, for he had 
carried off and fed to his nestlings one of their 
babies. 

Tan and Teckle had heard enough. They 



64 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

— — — — — — — m - n =— — . — , — i, ,. .. — ,_^^^ = — =__— 

climbed up through the long, hollow tap root 
of the stump into their own cozy nest. Next 
evening when the bat was awake, but before 
he was ready to fly forth, they asked him 
about the screech owl. 

" Keep out of his sight," advised the bat. 
" He is very light on the wing, very quick, 
and always hungry. He would catch and eat 
you both in a breath. He would even try to 
eat me, I believe, if he could catch me. But 
when I am flying I am just as quick as he, 
and a deal more active, so he does not trouble 
me then. And when I want to sleep I take 
good care to get where he cannot find me, so I 
am safe. 

" But I know that he does catch and eat all 
manner of little wild folks. I see a great deal 
of that as I fly about at night. He eats more 
grasshoppers in summer than anything else — 
I suppose because there are so many of them, 
and they are easy to catch at night. But I 
have seen him catch many a mouse, too. 
Sometimes he eats little birds, mostly the 
English Sparrow, of which I am not sorry, 



A WEIRD LAUGH 65 

for the sparrow hangs about man all the time, 
and gets fat and saucy. I have seen the 
screech owl eat crawfish, and sometimes even 
worms. 

" But do not think that man and the screech 
owl are friends, even if his call does sound 
like a boy's laugh. He is just as much afraid 
of man as you are, and with quite as much 
reason." 

11 Why, does man eat screech owls too ? " 

" Oh, no, man eats very few meat eaters. 
They are always tough, and he does not like 
the flavour. But he kills, always. He kills 
screech owls just because he can. Everything 
that runs, or flies, or crawls, no matter what, 
he kills. He has no better friend anywhere, if 
he only knew it, than the screech owl. It loves 
to live near his house, it almost never harms 
any of his slaves, and it kills the grasshoppers 
that eat his crops and the sparrows that eat 
his grain and annoy him with their fuss, and 
the mice that destroy " 

The bat had not meant to be rude, but he 
had forgotten that he was talking to a pair of 



66 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

the mice which eat grain in the fields, in the 
shock or in the stack, and kill the grass by 
eating the roots. He stopped short when he 
remembered. 

" It's time I went a-flying," he said, think- 
ing of nothing better, so he scrambled out of 
the stump and flapped away. 

" Well, whatever others have done, we have 
stolen nothing/' remarked Teckle. " We have 
picked up only what was dropped in the field, 
and we have not gone near the farmhouse or 
the barn. So I think man should not count 
us among his enemies." 

" What matter," replied Tan. " It seems he 
kills his friends as well as his enemies. Wild 
things kill because they need to eat ; man 
kills because he wants to see things die. I 
think I like meat eaters better." 

But though the mice now knew the cry of 
the screech owl, they did not know him by 
sight, and this came near costing Tan dearly a 
few nights later. He had heard the cry from 
time to time, and knew that the little owl was 
in the neighbourhood, but thought it was still 



A WEIRD LAUGH 67 

safe for him to go on with his feeding near the 
old water gate across Pleasant Ran. The fly- 
ing squirrels were out, sailing down in long, 
easy slopes from one tree to another, and 
scampering up again to take long, flying leaps 
to other trees. Several times they sailed right 
over Tan's head as he sat grubbing among the 
grass roots for dainties, and he sat up to watch 
them. Instead of being afraid, since he had 
learned how harmless and playful are the 
flying squirrels, he loved to watch them at 
their pranks. They seemed to be chasing 
each other, for when one sailed across the 
open glade from tree to tree he was followed 
closely by several others, who went scampering 
up the tree after him, and leaped after when 
he launched forth to another tree. 

Tan had just got a good mouthful of tender 
grass root, and had stopped digging while he 
should enjoy it, when over his head came 
sailing what he took for another flying squir- 
rel. It sailed through the air just as noise- 
lessly as any flying squirrel, but Tan noticed 
that it did some things he had never seen a 



68 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

flying squirrel do. It seemed to sail along in 
a perfectly level line through the air, while 
the flying squirrels always sailed downward 
except for a little just before they alighted. 
And this one, instead of alighting on the 
trunk of a tree and scrambling up to the top 
for another leap, alighted directly on the top 
of a stake of the old rail fence, and sat per- 
fectly still. It even seemed to stand upright 
on its hind feet so that it looked exactly like 
part of the fence stake, and not at all like a 
squirrel. 

For a few breaths Tan sat perfectly still, 
more from habit when he saw anything that 
he did not fully understand than from any 
fear. Certainly it did not enter his little head 
that there was any danger from this little 
flying squirrel, as he thought it, though it did 
behave strangely. In another moment he 
would have gone on with his digging, when 
irom the queer little figure on the fence stake 
floated out the weird, strange tremolo which, 
the first time he had heard it, he had mistaken 
for the laugh of a boy. 




r 



w 



i 



CHARIF. 



TAN HAD NEVER HAD A MORE NARROW ESCAPE " 



A WEIRD LAUGH 69 



The screech owl ! There it sat almost over 
his head, and he many a long leap from the 
old oak stump in which was safety. But Tan 
leaped. His nerves were so unstrung that he 
would have run, even if he had been many 
times as far from his nest, and had been quite 
in the open. It was not in mouse nature to 
hear that cry right over his head, and keep 
quiet. He leaped for the cover of the fence 
on which the owl sat. Luckily for him he 
remembered where was a hollow rail right on 
the ground, for he had often stopped there to 
rest on his way to and from the corn field 
across Pleasant Run. 

Of course the moment he moved the owl 
both heard and saw him, and leaped directly 
down at him. But quick as the owl was he 
was not quick enough. Knowing exactly 
where was the knot-hole in the rail, Tan 
leaped inside. He barely got the tip of his 
tail out of reach when a little taloned foot 
grabbed at it. Tan had never had a more 
narrow escape. 

The screech owl flew up on a dead snag 



70 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

near by and laughed and laughed for a long 
time, and finally flew away. Not until long 
after Tan heard him calling from another part 
of the woodland did he venture to creep out 
and run home. 





THE CANNIBAL'S FATE 

ISTEN! That sounds 
like the music of our 
friend the katydid." 

It was rapidly growing dark, and Tan and 
Teckle were on their way back to the nest 
with their cheek pouches filled with grains 
of corn which they had gathered from the 
ground where the men had dropped it. The 
field-mice had crossed the stream of Pleasant 
Run on the old water gate, followed the worm 
fence to the corner of the field, and had there 
found plenty of grain which was theirs for the 
taking. 

They stopped and listened intently — and a 

mouse's hearing is much more acute than a 

man's, or even a boy's. 

71 



72 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

" Cri-i-i-cri-i-cri, cri-i-i-cri-i-cri," came a 
shrill, monotonous chant from somewhere in 
the grass of the old fence row. 

" That is not a katydid's music," whispered 
Teckle. " His sounded much more cheerful. 
This is like a complaint." 

" Well, whatever it is," argued Tan, " the 
sound is made in the same way the katydid 
makes his music. That is not a song from 
the mouth." 

Slowly, carefully, cautiously, the pair of 
little field-mice crept through the grass 
towards the spot where the musician seemed 
to be. But they were by no means agreed 
as to the direction or the distance. As in the 
case of the katydid, sometimes the music 
seemed a long way off, and sometimes right 
at hand ; sometimes in one direction, some- 
times another. 

After much patient looking and listening 
here and there through the grass they came 
upon the musician. He was about the size of 
Cousin Gray, the dusty old grasshopper, be- 
fore he was killed and eaten ; but he was 



THE CANNIBAL'S FATE 73 

much more plump, and instead of being gray 
he was quite black. He had the heavy hind 
legs of a jumper, but they were not so long as 
a grasshopper's. His feelers were very long — 
longer than all the rest of him together, just 
like a katydid's. 

He sat in a little bare space which had been 
cleared of grass, and right beside him was a 
hole in the ground which the field-mice did 
not doubt was his nest, into which he would 
creep when he had done making music. They 
crept closer, but if he saw them he did not 
show it by any movement, either of fear or 
friendliness. He sat by his doorway and 
went on with his music. 

As Tan and Teckle got quite near they saw 
that the musician was indeed making music 
just as the katydid had done. He raised up 
his wing covers as if he were about to fly, 
though they felt sure that he could never lift 
that fat body with such ridiculous little wings. 
They could see that he was making the music 
by moving the wing covers back and forth 
very rapidly. They were sure he must have 



74 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

seen them, but he gave no heed to their pres- 
ence. 

11 May you never be frightened/' said Tan, 
politely. 

" Cri-i-i-cri-i-cri " went on the music as if 
the black musician had not heard the saluta- 
tion. Abashed, the field-mice drew back, but 
remained within sight. Presently, as thev 
watched, another insect of the same kind but 
much smaller came into view. He crept from 
the grass into the little cleared space, raised 
his wing covers, and started to make music. 
But he scarcely had time to sound a feeble 
note when the first one rushed savagely upon 
him, and they began to fight. For a long 
time they rolled and struggled about the 
ground, but finally the larger one killed the 
other. Then, to the horror of Tan and 
Teckle, he began eating his victim right 
before their eyes. Terror-stricken, they ran 
home. 

Next evening, before the bat was ready to 
fly forth from their old stump, they told him 
what they had seen. 



THE CANNIBAL'S FATE 75 

11 That was a mole cricket," he told them. 
" He is as cross as an owl all the time, and 
just as cruel. If he has a friend in all the 
woodland I do not know who it is. He eats 
his own brother, like a spider. 

11 Yes, that hole in the ground is his den. 
He has fore legs just like a mole's — you re- 
member the mole that used to live here in the 
woodland, don't you ? And like the mole, he 
digs in the ground. He makes a hole straight 
down for ever so far, and then makes run- 
ways all about under the ground. I have 
heard the farmer complain a great deal about 
mole crickets killing his vines by eating the 
roots. 

" He eats anything he can get. I have often 
seen him kill and eat creatures smaller than 
himself. He eats grain, too, and the tender 
roots of plants. He is always hungry. I 
think it is a shame for man to call him the 
mole cricket merely because he digs in the 
ground, for the mole is such a quiet, well- 
behaved fellow, and not in the least quarrel- 
some. 



76 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

11 But never mind. This cricket will be 
climbing down into that hole for the win- 
ter as soon as the weather gets cold, and 
you will not see him any more until next 
spring.' ' 

The mole cricket was not destined to sleep 
that winter in his warm burrow, though no- 
body knew it then. 

The bat told the wondering field-mice about 
several relatives of the mole cricket who are 
really pleasant to know. He had travelled 
so much, and had been about the farm- 
house and the barn as well as in the woods, 
and with the birds of the air as well as 
with the small wild folks of the ground and 
trees, that he knew many things which 
were hidden from the quiet, home-loving 
field-mice. 

He told them of one kind of cricket that 
always lives close to the home of man. He 
digs his burrows beside the house walls, and 
is especially glad if he can make his nest near 
an oven that will keep him warm. Then he 
sings all winter long. And he very often 






THE CANNIBAL'S FATE 77 

gets inside the house, and sits near the fire, 
and makes music which even man enjoys. 
Very seldom is the cricket molested when he 
chooses to live in the house, for he is a 
cleanly, cheerful little musician, meddles 
with nothing, and eats only the crumbs from 
the man's table. 

The true house cricket is yellowish in 
colour, with brown markings, but there is a 
black field cricket which has the same fond- 
ness for the house of man, pla} r s just as cheer- 
ful music, and is quite as welcome. 

These little folk, too, live in burrows in the 
ground, or in chinks between the stones of 
chimneys and hearths, but they have none of 
the quarrelsome ways of the mole cricket. 
Like the katydid, only the male is able to 
make music, and the chief use of his tunes, 
aside from the pleasure it gives him, is to call 
his mate to him. After the mating season he 
seems to make music just for love of it. 

" Does the cricket creep on his stomach and 
look like a worm when he is first hatched, as 
the butterfly does ? " asked Teckle of the bat. 



78 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

" Not he. When the cricket creeps from 
the egg he is very like what he is when full 
grown, only very small. But he soon reme- 
dies that difference, for he has a great appe- 
tite. He just eats and grows, and eats and 
grows, for that is all he has to do." 

Teckle wanted to know whether the cricket 
has many enemies that hunt him and try to 
kill and eat him. 

" Yes indeed ! I should say that quite as 
many try to catch him as try to catch you — 
perhaps more. For you have not very many 
bird enemies, while even a sparrow can eat a 
cricket, and the great owl does not despise 
him because he is small. The cricket is really 
safe only when he is deep in his burrow, just 
as you are safe only in this solid old oak 
stump." 

It was to be the fortune of Tan and Teckle 
to see several narrow escapes of the mole 
cricket, and finally to see his fate overtake 
him. They very often made trips to and 
from the old corn field, gathering grain and 
seeds from the ground, and it was seldom that 



THE CANNIBAL'S FATE 79 

they passed his burrow without either seeing 
or hearing him, or both. They travelled 
mostly in the twilight of evenings or early 
mornings, and that was just the time the fat, 
black musician loved to sit beside his door- 
way and play. 

One time when the field-mice were scurry- 
ing along the fence row they heard a tremen- 
dous pounding on the ground, and crouched 
under a fence rail and watched in terror, for 
they knew it must be the footsteps of some 
mighty animal. It was several young horses 
which had been turned into the field to exer- 
cise, and they were running and playing. 
Right over the spot where the cricket had 
been sitting and fiddling ran the great an- 
imals, neighing and kicking and romping. 
When they had passed nothing was to be seen 
of the cricket. Even the entrance to his 
tunnel had been blotted out. It seemed that 
one of the terrible hoofs had struck him and 
crushed him into the earth. 

But next morning there he was, self-satis- 
fied as ever, playing away beside his burrow. 



80 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

He had just managed to get inside when a 
horse's hoof struck the entrance and crushed 
in so much of the upper part of the burrow 
that it took the cricket most of the night to 
open it. 

Again, soon after, the cricket was forced to 
flee in terrdV into his tunnel to save his life. 
A flock of robins had been gathering for days 
in the grove of sugar maples, planning their 
long journey to the south where they would 
spend the cold days of winter. They slept in 
the maples, but flew into the fields for food. 
That morning they were out long before sun- 
rise. It was so chilly that the cricket should 
have been inside, but he had crawled forth 
and was waiting for the sun to warm him, 
when the robins came hurtling over the high 
fence. One of them spied the cricket and 
dropped down to get him. The cricket saw 
his danger, but he was chilled and stiff with 
the morning air, and was so slow getting into 
his burrow that the robin's beak actually 
touched one of his legs as he scurried inside. 

The real tragedy came on another morning 






THE CANNIBAL'S FATE 81 

before sunrise. The boys of the Bradley farm 
were concerned in it. They had a pet crow 
which was almost always with them, every- 
where they went about the fields and woods. 
That morning they had an early errand in 
that part of the farm, and the crow was with 
them as usual, riding on top of a boy's head. 
It was lucky that Tan and Teckle had heard 
them coming and hid under a fence rail and 
kept perfectly still, for the crow's eyes and ears 
were keen as a cat's, and she would have 
caught and eaten them just as surely as a cat 
would. 

When the boys were just opposite where the 
trembling mice lay hidden, the crow left the 
boy's head and flew to the top of a fence stake. 
She had no sooner alighted than she spied the 
great, fat, black mole cricket beside his bur- 
row. The cricket saw his danger, too, and 
made a leap for his burrow just as the crow, 
with outspread wings, leaped to the ground to 
seize him. The cricket might have succeeded 
in getting away if he had not been so excited. 
But in his fear he leaped too hard, and struck 



82 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

the ground so heavily that he rolled com- 
pletely over, and before he could scramble to 
his feet the crow had him. She uttered a 
satisfied croak, and flew back to her perch on 
the crown of the boy's wide, straw hat. 





A LIVING NEST 

T was a warm, still, September 
night on the Bradley farm. 
The moon, about half way to 
the full, was already high in the sky 
at sunset so that there really had been 
no darkness at all — just the exchange of 
bright sunlight for the mellow half-light of 
the moon. It was an ideal night for the little 
wild folks who love the twilight, and they 
were abroad by hundreds. 

You would not have been aware of many of 
them, even if you had walked into that lonely 
corner of the farm, and had sat down to rest 
on the very stump that sheltered Tan and 
Teckle, the little field-mice. You would 

never have dreamed that those two bright- 

83 



84 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

eyed little creatures were in there, listening to 
all you did and trying to make out what you 
were ahout. You would never have known 
that just beneath the stump was the burrow of 
the muskrats whose ripples you might have 
seen as they swam and dived in Pleasant Run 
brook. 

The great owl you might have heard while 
he was far away, but when he came near you 
would have thought, if you saw him at all, 
that he was part of the old dead tree on which 
he sat. You would never have believed how 
near to you the red fox walked when he had 
made sure that you had no dog along ; nor 
how closely the old raccoon was eyeing you 
from the hollow of the box elder tree only a 
few rods distant. 

No doubt you would have seen the bat flap- 
ping about overhead, for he cares not who sees 
him; but the pretty flying squirrels that sail 
down from tree to tree, to climb and sail away 
again, you would not have seen. They would 
have gone to another part of the wood when 
you appeared. 



A LIVING NEST 85 

Night birds, night prowling animals, and 
insects that love the darkness would have 
looked at you, and listened to you, and 
studied you with their hundreds of pairs of 
eyes and ears all the while you imagined 
yourself utterly alone. 

But if you had sat very, very still for 
a long, long time, and never moved nor 
made a sound, you might have witnessed 
a strange proceeding. For this is what hap- 
pened : 

Across the woodland from towards Nineveh 
creek came a creature about the size of a cat, 
but with shorter legs. Its long, sharp muzzle 
was held close to the ground, and its shiny, 
bead-like eyes glistened in the moonlight. It 
moved with an odd, ambling gait not at all 
like the lithe, sinuous, graceful movement of 
a cat. And its long tail, instead of being 
beautifully furred like a cat's, was bare and 
snaky. In colour this strange animal was 
grayish, with indefinite black markings show- 
ing in the light of the moon. Yes, it was an 
opossum. 



86 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



Already he had eaten much, this opossum, 
but he was hunting for more. He had been 
up on the clay hills where grew the persim- 
mon wild in the thickets, and although the 
season was early, and the frost had not fully 
ripened the fruit, he had found some soft 
enough to eat. He had found under the 
trees in the creek bottom an abundance of 
ripe hackberries, and had gorged himself on 
them though they were little more than seed 
and skin. Many an old, decaying log and 
stump he had explored, finding therein 
many a fat grub and beetle. Still he was 
hungry. 

The opossum stopped and sniffed carefully 
at a scrub elm on which several clusters of 
dried leaves hung near the ground. He 
walked carefully around the tree, then began 
to climb it, slowly, noiselessly, and with ex- 
treme care. Up the trunk he went, and out 
one of the branches until he came to one of 
the thick clusters of dry leaves. Then there 
was a sudden movement, a mighty rustling 
of the leaves, and several hedge sparrows 




HE PRICKED UP HIS EARS AND LISTENED 



A LIVING NEST 87 

darted forth, fluttering and chattering in 
affright. One of them did not fly away. 
The opossum had caught him. Seated in the 
fork of the tree the greedy creature slowly ate 
his victim, while the chirping and complain- 
ing of the other birds gradually died away in 
the night as they found other roosting places 
and settled down. 

When he had finished that part of his meal 
the opossum climbed down and started to 
hunt something else, for he was still hungry. 
He went down to the water's edge at Pleasant 
Run brook, and there found a minnow which 
a turtle had injured, and which had drifted 
helplessly against the bank. This he fished 
out of the water and ate 

While he was busy with this new dainty — 
for it was not often he tasted fish — he heard 
the barking of a dog far away, in the woods 
through which he had just come. He pricked 
up his ears and listened, but did not move 
away. He knew perfectly well what boys 
and dogs were, but he had often heard them 
in the woods at night and they had not yet 



88 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

disturbed him. So he ate leisurely at his 
minnow, and finally finished it. By this 
time the dog was coming much nearer, and 
the opossum thought it wise to get out of the 
way, so he started on a queer, ambling run, to 
hide himself. 

Across the shallow brook and up the other 
bank went the opossum, through the old 
worm fence, and along the bank of Pleasant 
Run towards Nineveh creek. He knew 
where to find a tall tree with a hole in it 
high up, if he but had time to reach it. 

By this time the dog was barking by the 
hackberry tree where the opossum had eaten 
berries. Then, as he hurried, the opossum 
could hear him at the logs where he had 
eaten grubs ; at the elm where he had caught 
the sparrow ; at the spot where he had found 
the minnow ; and finally over the fence and 
through the woodland right towards him. 
There was no longer room to doubt that the 
dog was trailing him. There was no time to 
reach the hollow tree ; the best the opossum 
could do was to creep into a hollow, decayed 



A LIVING NEST 89 

log, crawl as far back as he could, and lie 
still. 

The dog, barking excitedly, followed the 
trail to the hollow log, thrust his muzzle in, 
sniffed eagerly, and set up a loud baying. 
He had located his prey. With shouts of 
joy the boys began chopping at the log 
with axes, and in a few moments the rotten, 
crumbling wood gave way, the opossum w r as 
exposed to view, and the dog leaped in and 
seized him. 

Did the opossum turn on the dog with his 
keen teeth and defend his life ? Not he. 
When he felt the dog's teeth he closed his 
eyes, stretched out his legs, let his jaw drop, 
stiffened his whole body, and seemed to be 
dead. After one or two vigorous shakes 
the dog dropped him to the ground and 
walked away. The dog looked with con- 
tempt on a foe which he thought he had 
killed so easily, but the boys only laughed at 
the dog. They were not deceived. They 
knew perfectly well that the opossum was not 
dead— not even hurt. He was only " playing 



90 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

'possum " — pretending to be dead until they 
should go away, when he would scurry to his 
den. 

" Let's see how long he'll keep it up," said 
one. 

So they called the dog and started away, 
but went no farther than the trunk of a tree 
a few steps away. They hid behind it, held 
the dog, and kept perfectly still for several 
minutes, waiting for what they knew would 
happen. For a time the opossum lay as still 
as if he were really dead. Then his eyes 
opened. Next the gaping mouth closed and 
the head, with its beady eyes and keen nose, 
was lifted from the ground. Thinking the 
boys and dog were gone the opossum quickly 
scrambled to his feet and started to run. But 
the boys, with loud shouts of laughter, leaped 
from behind the tree and seized him by the 
scaly tail. 

" Let's muzzle him. The last one nipped 
my leg," said the boy who was carrying him. 
So they placed a short stick crosswise in the 
opossum's mouth and tied his jaws fast upon 



A LIVING NEST 91 

it with a string, and carried him away by the 
tail. 

" We'll pen him up and feed him, and he'll 
be fat as a pig by Thanksgiving Day," they 
said. 

They did pen him up and feed him, but 
they did not eat him when Thanksgiving 
Day came. They had not counted on their 
dog. 

The opossum was kept under an inverted 
box with a heavy weight on it. The boys fed 
him with everything that even his appetite 
could demand. Fresh meat, pawpaws, per- 
simmons, the heads, feet and entrails of 
chickens, and many strange foods which the 
opossum had never tasted before, but which 
he ate and relished. And assuredly he did 
wax fat. Of course he did not like being 
penned up, and often tried to gnaw or dig 
his way out, but he could not. 

The dog did not approve of all this. He 
thought that opossums were made for boys 
and dogs to hunt and kill, and he spent much 
of his time trying to get at the prisoner. He 



92 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

was continually prowling about that box, ap- 
proaching it stealthily and dashing around it 
in the hope of surprising the opossum. His 
time came one dark night. Some person 
about the house had lifted the weight off the 
box, and the opossum found that he could 
move it. He was trying to get one side high 
enough to creep under it, when the dog espied 
him. With a mighty charge the dog threw 
his whole weight against the box, which the 
opossum was just lifting, and the result was 
that the box was turned entirely over. The dog 
seized the prisoner and shook him vigorously. 
The opossum did not struggle, and seemed 
to be very easily killed. The dog dropped 
him to the ground and looked him over. 
Yes, his eyes were closed, his mouth gaped 
open, his body stiff. He seemed quite dead, 
and the dog walked away, satisfied at last. 

Half an hour later a very fat and well 
pleased opossum, with a half grown chicken 
in his mouth, was ambling as fast as his short 
legs would carry him, through the sugar 
maple grove towards the woodland. He 



A LIVING NEST 93 

stopped half-way and made a meal off the 
chicken, wandered about until daybreak, and 
began to look for a place to sleep away the 
day. 

So it was that Tan and Teckle, coming 
home after a ramble abroad for food, found a 
strange animal sleeping in their hollow stump. 
And so it was that the bat, tired and sleepy 
after a night on the wing, creeping into the 
stump for a day's sleep, scrambled out again 
chattering with rage, and was compelled to 
sleep that day in a hollow tree. The mice 
kept out of the way in the niuskrat's burrow 
beneath their stump, and when night came on 
again the opossum climbed out and went on 
his way. 

The bat was still in bad humour when he 
came home to the stump the next morning. 

" The great, fat pig ! " he exclaimed — first 
taking care to see that the opossum was not 
inside. " The glutton ! It is a pity they did 
not eat him — I wish they had." 

The bat knew all about the opossum's ad- 
venture with the boys. 



94 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

" His family is old, but he hasn't any man- 
ners for all that. He has had all the food he 
could stuff into his greedy mouth for many 
suns. Yet the moment he is free he kills the 
farmer's chicken, and he makes a trail here 
for the boys and dog to follow and make us 
trouble. And if he could have caught you 
and me he would have eaten all of us. I'm 
sorry he ever got away." 

" What do you mean by his family being 
old ? " inquired Teckle. " Have they lived 
in this woodland so much longer than the 
rest of us ? " 

" Not exactly that. But the opossum is a 
form of life that was among the first of the 
four-footed land animals. The young are very 
small, and blind and helpless when they are 
born. The mother picks them up and puts 
them into a pouch underneath her body, and 
carries them about with her until they are 
almost grown. She is a living nest for them, 
and takes them with her always." 

" How nice that must be ! " 

" Perhaps so. But I wish they'd stay in 



A LIVING NEST 



95 



their own part of the woodland. They're 
greedy, they eat meat as well as fruit and 
everything else, and this one has angered the 
farmer and come here to sleep and bring 
down danger on us." 

And the bat chattered and squeaked until 
it was broad daylight and he fell asleep in 
spite of himself. 





5 



THE MINNOW 

S they went and came about their 
work or play on these pleasant 
autumn days, Tan and Teckle 
always enjoyed stopping on the bank of the 
brook of Pleasant Run to watch the min- 
nows. They knew very little about these 
tiny fish, but they loved to watch them be- 
cause they always seemed so happy, so free 
from care, and so playful. There were a great 
many schools of minnows in the little creek, 
and every time one of the little field-mice 
happened along the bank, they were to be 
seen darting rapidly about the riffles, or leap- 

96 



THE MINNOW 97 

ing into the air from the pools, or lying idly 
near the surface in the sunshine. 

" Surely," thought Tan and Teckle, "the 
life of these little creatures is all ease and 
pleasure. They have neither to seek for food, 
nor hide from danger ; for their food is 
brought to them by the stream, and nothing 
can go into the water to catch them. They 
must be the happiest of all the little wild 
people, for they have less to worry them than 
any of the rest of us." 

Tan made some such remark to the bat one 
evening, after a particularly trying day. Very 
early in the morning Tan had a narrow es- 
cape from a large water-snake. Several times 
crows, gathering for their winter convention, 
had hunted in flocks across that part of the 
woodland, and Tan was forced to hide. Then 
more than one hawk, hunting singly and by 
stealth, had driven Tan to cover. So the day 
had been full of alarms, and when the little 
field-mouse went out in the evening he was 
actually run over and trampled upon by a 
rabbit, fleeing wildly from some unseen foe, 



98 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

braising him a little and frightening him very 
much. And on his way back to the old 
stump he had been compelled to creep into a 
hollow fence rail and lie there for a long, long 
time, while the great owl hooted and hooted 
almost above his head. 

As he finally scampered across the old water 
gate, Tan could see the school of minnows 
playing in the shallow water in the moonlight, 
rippling the surface as they raced about, and 
sometimes making a tiny splash as one leaped 
clear of the water. Tan thought their peace- 
ful life so happy in contrast to his own that 
he spoke to the bat about it. 

" If you want to learn a lesson, little 
brother," said the bat, " go to the creek bank 
to-morrow and spend as much of the day there 
as you can, and watch the minnows. Just 
keep out of sight and watch, and in the even- 
ing tell me what you think." 

Tan thought that perhaps he was to learn 
the secret of the happy and peaceful life of 
the minnows ; so very, very early next morn- 
ing, long before sunrise, he left the nest in the 






THE MINNOW 99 

old hollow stump and made his way to the 
water's edge. He did not go outside and 
climb down the steep bank, but crept down 
through the hollow tap root of the stump, 
and went through the muskrat's tunnel. The 
mouth of this tunnel was right at the edge of 
the water, and the entrance was so well con- 
cealed by grass that Tan could sit with his 
feet in the water and see all that happened, 
and yet remain unseen. 

Tan, accustomed to the night as well as the 
day, could see the minnows swimming about, 
feeding on tiny insects and bits of vegetable 
matter in the water. The sun was just begin- 
ning to brighten the clouds in the east when 
some movement on the bank seemed to alarm 
the minnows, for the whole school swam 
towards the farther side of the brook, where 
stood something which Tan thought was part 
of the root of an old stump, washed down the 
stream in time of high water. It looked per- 
fectly natural, although Tan did not remem- 
ber having seen it there before. The minnows 
swam straight towards it, but the moment 



100 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

they were within reach the upper part of the 
old root shot into the water as quick as 
thought. Then the old piece of stump, as 
Tan had thought it, rose from the water and 
on broad, flapping wings, flew swiftly up the 
stream, with long, slender legs trailing out 
behind, and long beak, grasping a minnow^ 
thrust far out in front. 

" Skyounk ! Skyounk ! " cried a hoarse 
voice as the little green heron flapped around 
the bend in the creek and disappeared. 

The minnows darted back into deeper 
water when the heron seized their play- 
fellow, and for a moment were very quiet. 
Then they came forth and began playing 
about in the shallows as if nothing had 
happened. 

Next Tan saw a beautiful bird coming down 
the creek, flying with rapid wing strokes. 
Tan had often seen this bird, but knew noth- 
ing of him. He was larger than a robin, but 
blue and white in colour like a jay, and with 
even a larger crest than any jay. As he flew 
he uttered a loud, rasping cry, more like the 



THE MINNOW 101 

clattering together of pieces of wood than any 
sound made by a voice. 

As this handsome bird flew over them the 
minnows seemed greatly disturbed, and fled 
into the deeper water again. But when the 
bird perched on a dead limb overhanging the 
water, and sat perfectly still, it was but a little 
time until they came forth again and began 
to play about the shallows. Then Tan saw 
the bird drop from his perch and dart head 
first, at great speed, into the water. He. came 
forth immediately, scattering from his feath- 
ers the shining drops of water, and uttering 
his rasping cry, and flew back around the 
bend of the creek with a minnow in his beak. 
Tan had seen the hunting of the great king- 
fisher. 

Again the school of minnows fled in terror, 
and again their terror was over in a moment, 
and they had forgotten all danger and were 
playing and feeding as before. This time 
they were attracted to the side of the stream 
where Tan was hiding. They came slowly 
across the little stream, playing, leaping over 



102 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

each other, several of them rising to the 
surface to catch the midges that fell on the 
water. When they were so near that Tan 
could have reached them with a single short 
leap, there shot out from the grass right be- 
side him the flat head and long, sinuous body 
of the very water-snake that liad tried to catch 
him the day before. This time the snake did 
not fail in his stroke, and Tan saw him swim 
to the bank, climb out of the water, and swal- 
low alive the minnow he had just caught. 

Again frightened for the moment, the 
school darted up stream a short distance to 
where there was a deeper pool, with soft, oozy 
bottom. They had been there but a few 
breaths when they came rushing madly forth ; 
and from the muddiness of the water, and the 
size of the ripples circling from the pool, Tan 
judged that some enemy had attacked them 
under water. A little later he saw a small 
mud turtle crawl from the water to the top 
of a log beside the bank, and go to sleep with 
the satisfied air of one who has just had a 
good meal. 



THE MINNO W 1Q3 

By this time the sun was rising. In the 
bright reflection of the rays Tan saw long lines 
of ripples from some creature swimming up 
the stream. At first he thought it was the 
muskrat, coming home to his burrow for a 
day's sleep. Apparently the minnows thought 
so too, for they did not flee as if they knew 
him for an enemy, and they knew well that 
they had nothing to fear from the muskrat, 
who eats only roots, fruit and vegetables. 
They merely veered a little to one side and 
went on their way. But instead of passing 
them by, when he was right abreast of the 
school the animal lowered his head, dived 
with all the quickness and grace of a musk- 
rat, and when he came up he held in his 
teeth the largest minnow of all. It was not 
the muskrat at all, but a mink ! 

Out of the water stepped the mink 7 the 
minnow in his teeth, his head held high. He 
stopped for a moment and stood motionless, 
listening. Then he stole swiftly and silently 
up the steep bank and disappeared. He had 
seen, or smelled, or heard some danger. Tan, 



104 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

too, heard an unwonted sound, pricked up 
his ears and listened. The three boys of the 
Bradley farm were coming. Tan was well 
hidden, he had at his back the muskrat's 
tunnel through which to flee in case of 
danger, and he felt safe to sit where he was. 
The boys came down into the water almost 
opposite where Tan was concealed. They un- 
folded a small net, and drew it rapidly 
through the water, and when they lifted it 
they had almost half the school of minnows 
in its meshes. The boys were going fishing, 
and wanted live minnows to bait their hooks. 
True, they threw back into the water all but 
the largest, but when they had gone, even 
Tan could see that there were not nearly as 
many minnows as there had been. 

Tan had seen enough. It was barely sun- 
rise, 3? , et already that morning he had seen 
more enemies after the minnows than he had 
ever believed they had in the world. He ran 
back through the muskrat's tunnel, crept up 
through the long, hollow tap root of the 
stump, and was safe in his own nest again. 



THE MINNOW 105 

" Mother Nature makes them just for that," 
remarked the bat when Tan told him what he 
had witnessed. " Minnows seem to live just 
to supply larger fish with food. That is why 
they multiply so rapidly. Each female lays 
hundreds of eggs, and unless they are eaten, 
nearly all the eggs hatch. From the time the 
minnows leave the egg they are food for all 
manner of meat eaters. Larger fish eat them 
all the time, and } r ou have seen some of their 
other enemies. But Mother Nature makes 
them multiply so rapidly that there is no 
danger that they will all be eaten, and she 
gives them short memories so that they do 
not worry long about anything that troubles 
them." 

After that Tan was always ready to believe 
that his own lot was by no means the worst 
in life, and that even the little wild people 
who seem happiest have quite as many wor- 
ries as he. 



?>■> 




AN UNPLEASANT NEIGH- 
BOUR 

HE day had been beautifully 
sunny and mild, a perfect au- 
tumn day. There had been 
no strong wind to bring an odour from afar, 
yet as Tan and Teckle, the little field-mice, 
sat in the doorway of their old hollow oak 
stump and sniffed the evening breeze it was 
not pleasant. They could not understand the 
taint in it. 

" It is as offensive as the odour of something 
long dead," said Tan, " but it is different." 

" It is like the odour of a meat eater, only 
many times stronger," replied Teckle. " I 
feel sure it is some strange animal." 

Just then their cousin the bat, who had fin- 
ished his day's sleep in the hollow of their 

106 



AN UNPLEASANT NEIGHBOUR 107 

6 tump, scrambled to the top ready for his 
evening flight. 

" That is a skunk," he declared, after one 
sniff at the tainted air. " An arrant thief, 
and quarrelsome, too. He has been having 
trouble ; that is why he smells so badly just 
now. I am sorry one has come into our 
woodland, for his presence always means 
trouble. It would be just like him to get the 
farmer after him, and then hide in our stump 
as the opossum did." 

The bat had spent so many days in the old 
hollow stump where the mice lived that he 
now called it " our stump." 

The field-mice joined heartily in the bat's 
wish that the skunk might move out of the 
woodland as quickly as possible. They re- 
membered with mortification how the opos- 
sum had once lain in their stump all day 
while they had to hide away from their own 
nest. But it would be much more unpleasant 
to have such an ill-smelling creature as the 
skunk in the place, and especially if the 
farmer came hunting him. 



108 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

" Is he very like the opossum ? " they asked 
the bat. 

" In being a thief, yes ; and in going where 
he is not wanted, yes ; but he does not look 
like the opossum, and his ways are not the 
same, and above all he does not smell like an 
opossum. The skunk digs a burrow in the 
earth like the fox instead of living in a hollow 
tree like the opossum. He is about the size 
of the opossum, but looks more like a cat — 
indeed the farmer calls him a polecat. And 
instead of the naked, snaky tail of the opos- 
sum, the skunk has a great, bushy one which 
he carries over his back like a squirrel. And 
in colour he is black, with white stripes 
lengthwise along his sides." 

" Why does he smell so ill? Is it because 
he eats creatures that have been a long time 
dead?" 

" He smells like that only when he chooses. 
That is his method of fighting. Near his tail 
he has two little sacs in which he carries a 
liquid which makes this odour. When he is 
angered he turns his tail towards his enemy, 



AN UNPLEASANT NEIGHBOUR 109 

lifts his tail out of the way, and sprays out 
this liquid upon whoever has offended him. 
It makes one deathly sick." 

" That is as queer a way of getting rid of 
an enemy as the opossum's," remarked Teckle. 
" I remember you told us that he pretends to 
be dead until his enemy goes away, when he 
runs and hides." 

" It is much more like the old turkey buz- 
zard," ventured Tan. " He once told me that 
when he is angered his only way of fighting 
is to disgorge his food upon his enemy. And 
as he always eats creatures that have been dead 
a long time it must be very unpleasant." 

" The skunk is much worse than either," 
said the bat. " Let's hope he doesn't bring 
the farmer down here hunting him," was his 
parting remark as he flew away for the night. 

But the skunk did come very near to doing 
that very thing. He was a great thief, as the 
bat had said. He lived mostly on birds and 
small animals, but instead of being satisfied 
with what he could catch for himself he 
would go to the farmhouse and carry off 



110 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

chickens. Several times he took hens that 
were roosting outside the poultry-house, and 
was not detected. Then he grew bolder, and 
one night he got into the poultry-house and 
carried away one of the farmer's prize hens. 

Even then, if he had moved far away, and 
kept at a distance from the farmhouse, he 
might have escaped. But now that the 
farmer knew some creature was stealing his 
hens he would watch. The boys of the Brad- 
ley farm set traps, and one night they caught 
the thief by one toe; but he struggled so hard, 
and the trap had so small a hold on him, that 
he finally pulled himself loose, but not until 
he had emitted a great deal of spray and made 
such a stench that it could be smelled a long 
way off. 

Still the skunk did not learn prudence, but 
kept on coming after chickens instead of 
hunting for himself. So it was no wonder 
that one night he got into trouble. He found 
a hen roosting on the fence away from the 
poultry-house— two hens in fact. He crept 
up and seized one very deftly by the neck so 




f< -v @UL±. 



HE FOUND A HEN ROOSTING ON THE FENCE AWAY FROM 
THE POULTRY-HOUSF— TWO HENS IN FACT" 



AN UNPLEASANT NEIGHBOUR 111 

that she made no sound or struggle. But the 
other hen was frightened, and set up such a 
squalling that not only did the dogs come 
barking to learn what was the trouble, but 
the farmer and the boys came running to 
catch the marauder. 

By dropping the hen and running with all 
his might, weaving in and out through fences, 
and when he got into the sugar grove creep- 
ing through log heaps and underbrush, the 
skunk kept out of sight of the dogs and safe 
from immediate capture. But he left a trail 
that no dog could miss, and soon the boys 
were after him, their dogs baying on the 
scent. 

After a devious journey, to give the dogs 
more trouble to follow him, the skunk came 
to the open bit of woodland where dwelt Tan 
and Teckle. He knew that the dogs were 
rapidly gaining on him, and he must find 
some shelter. Tan and Teckle, standing in 
the doorway of one of the hollow roots lead- 
ing into their stump, saw him coming directly 
towards them in the early morning light. 



112 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

They knew him instantly, from the descrip- 
tion the bat had given. 

Although he was travelling as rapidly as 
he could, the skunk was not leaping with all 
four feet off the ground at once, nor galloping, 
nor even trotting as a fox or a dog would 
have done. His gait was more like the pe- 
culiar amble of the opossum, and he planted 
the flat sole of his feet on the ground like the 
raccoon. It seemed a very slow pace for one 
in danger of his being caught by the dogs, but 
it was the best the skunk could do. 

The strange animal came straight for the 
old oak stump as if he had known it was 
hollow and could give him shelter. The 
field-mice shrank back out of reach, but still 
watched. Right up to the stump he came, 
sniffed at the hollow root, and even tried it 
with one paw as if to see whether he could 
enlarge the hole and creep in. But the door- 
way was too small, and time was pressing. 
So around the stump he went, trying all the 
doorways. He even looked up at the top as 
if tempted to climb up and see if there were 



AN UNPLEASANT NEIGHBOUR 113 

not a hole in the top large enough to admit 
him — as indeed there was. Bat he decided 
that he had not time, for the baying of the 
dogs was heard close at hand by this time. 
So he turned and ambled away just as the 
dogs came into view on his trail. 

Then Tan and Teckle witnessed a strange 
combat. As the dogs saw him and rushed 
savagely* at him the skunk showed no fear, 
but stopped and coolly awaited them. When 
they were but a few leaps away he turned his 
tail towards them, lifted it carefully out of the 
way, and sent forth a cloud of fine spray. 
The foremost dog was not stopped by this, 
but dashed blindly in, seized the skunk, and 
in spite of a severe bite on the lip, gave a 
tremendous grip with his teeth, and a hard 
shake. Then he loosened his hold, ran away 
a few paces, and fell writhing to the ground 
and lay there, retching and groaning, and 
deathly sick. 

The second dog also rushed in and seized 
the skunk, giving it a hard grip with his jaws 
and a hearty shake. But he, too, was over- 



114 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

come by the odour, and lay in the grass, rolling 
and moaning as the other did. 

By this time the air was reeking with the 
stench. Tan and Teckle could scarcely bear 
it, yet they sat still and watched what hap- 
pened. They heard cries, and presently 
they saw the three boys of the Bradley farm 
running, and heard their shouts, their com- 
mands to the dogs to come away. The dogs 
were quite ready to come. The boys had not 
meant the dogs to seize the skunk, but merely 
to follow him and see where he should hide. 
They meant to dig him out and shoot him. 
In obedience to their calls the dogs crept away 
and did not try to seize the skunk, which by 
this time was ambling away. But one of the 
boys carried a gun, and presently there roared 
through the woodland what the little wild 
folks call the " thunder that kills," and the 
skunk lay dead in the grass. 

For many and many a day the carcass of 
the skunk lay there in the woodland and pol- 
luted the fresh air. Tan and Teckle were 
always sorry to see any creature killed, but 



AN UNPLEASANT NEIGHBOUR 115 

they had to agree with the bat that the skunk 
had in a measure deserved his fate. Instead 
of being satisfied with the food he could find 
for himself he had stolen the fowls which the 
farmer had grown. 

There were other evil results of the skunk's 
visit which later became apparent. The bat 
told the field-mice that the farmer had been 
compelled to shoot one of his dogs. The one 
which had been bitten by the skunk went 
mad, and if not killed would have gone about 
biting animals and men, and each one bitten 
would in his turn have gone mad. 

"Nobody seems to know why the skunk's 
bite should cause madness, but it certainly 
does," concluded the bat. " I think we are 
very lucky to escape all harm ourselves. 
Suppose he had hidden in our stump that 
morning when the boys came hunting him. 
I told you his presence always meant trouble 
for everybody. Let's hope another one never 
comes here." 














THE ACROBAT 

ICK, tick, tick, tick, tick, 
tick." 
/ A strange sound, like the 

clicking together of some little creature's 
teeth, was heard in the old hollow oak stump 
in which lived Tan and Teckle, the little field- 
mice. There was no sign of any animal near, 
no cries of rage or pain, and they had never 
seen an animal which made a steady clicking 
noise with his teeth and kept on doing it in- 
definitely. The sound seemed to come from 
the same place, neither coming nearer nor 
going farther away. 

At first the field-mice were alarmed, but 
116 



THE ACROBAT 117 

after a time they were no longer afraid, and 
crept about in the old stump, trying to dis- 
cover what made the sound, and where it was. 
Their seeking was without result. The sound 
seemed to come from the solid shell of the 
stump, and they could hear it as well from 
one place as another. 

Finally they gave up the search. They 
forbore to ask the bat about it in the evening 
when he awoke and flew forth for his dinner, 
for the sound had then ceased. But in the 
night they heard it again for a long time, 
ticking away steadily. Again they took up 
the search, and finally, almost by accident, 
they came upon a queer little beetle clinging 
to the inside of the stump, and striking his 
head against the hard wood with great force 
for such a little fellow. He worked very 
steadily, and they could hear the " tick, tick, 
tick," very clearly every time he struck. 
They had found him. 

As they looked the little fellow ceased 
knocking his head, and for several breaths he 
stood quite motionless and silent. Then he 



118 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

began as before, " tick, tick, tick," as if lie 
had work to do. The mice could not see that 
he was either getting food or making a hole 
in the wood for a nest, and what else he could 
possibly be about they could not guess. 

Again the little beetle paused and stood 
motionless. This time, faint and far, from 
some other part of the stump, sounded an an- 
swering " tick, tick, tick." The mystery was 
solved. The beetle had been calling for a 
mate, and she had answered his call. 

" Oh, yes, I know him well— very well in- 
deed — quite well," said the bat next evening 
when they told him of their discovery. 
" Would you ever believe that man is more 
afraid of that little beetle than you are ? " 

" How is that possible ? I thought that 
man is not afraid of anything ! " 

11 He is afraid of many things, and that tiny 
creature is one of them. I know, for I used 
to sleep in the barn near the farmhouse, and 
I have heard men talk. They call the little 
beetle a death watch, and when they hear him 
they are afraid, for they think that his ticking 



THE ACROBAT 119 

is a sign that some person in the house will 
die soon. Even you are braver than the men, 
for you are not afraid. As for me, I consider 
the beetle good eating." 

" What ! Do you kill and eat the poor 
beetle ? " 

" Why not? I must live, and to live I 
must eat. There are plenty of creatures that 
would eat me if they could catch me." 

It was the old, old problem of life — the 
strong preying on the weak, and they in turn 
preying on those still weaker. Tan and 
Teckle could never quite agree that it was 
right, yet it was good old Mother Nature's 
law, and she could not be wrong. 

" This beetle has a big cousin who makes a 
similar noise, but he does it in a different 
way, and only when he needs to," the bat 
told them. " You will see him some time. 
His legs are so short and weak that when he 
falls on his back he cannot turn over. He is 
more helpless than the mud turtle — or would 
be, if he had not invented a way to turn 
over." 



120 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

The mice did see the strange spring 
beetle, or skipjack, very soon. One day the 
three boys of the Bradley farm came into the 
woodland, and sat down against that very 
stump to rest. For a wonder their dogs were 
not with them — perhaps because they still 
carried the odour of the skunk, and were not 
pleasant company. The mice thought that 
the boys had come hunting them, and were 
greatly alarmed, but after a little while they 
found that the boys were not even thinking 
of them. At first Tan and Teckle hid away 
in the inmost recesses of the hollow stump, 
but by and by when they found that they 
were not molested they ventured down where 
they could see what the boys were doing. 
They were examining some creature that they 
had caught, and were much interested. 

" Put him on his back on this piece of 
bark," said one. After a moment the mice 
heard a click very like that made by the 
death watch. 

" Lay him with his head lower than his 
body and see if he can do it," said another 



THE ACROBAT 121 

boy. Then, after a pause, were heard two 
clicks. 

" He can do it on wood almost every time," 
said a boy. "Now try him in the soft dirt 
at the foot of the stump. That will not be so 
easy." 

And in the loose dirt right at the doorway 
into the old hollow stump, a boy laid down a 
very large beetle. He was dark gray in 
colour, with tiny mottlings of white; and on 
the place where his shoulders would have 
been if beetles had shoulders, were two great, 
densely black spots, round, with white edges, 
and looking like immense eyes. Its body 
was large, long and thick, but its legs were 
very short and ridiculous. 

The boy laid the beetle carefully on his 
back in the loose dirt, and left him there. 
For a moment he lay still, his legs waving 
impotently in the air as he reached about 
and tried in vain to lay hold on something 
that would help him to turn over and get on 
his feet. Then he ceased to struggle, pushed 
his head and thorax, or fore part of his body, 



122 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

far back as if they were hinged, and brought 
them down with a powerful snap. The 
beetle's body quivered, but did not turn over. 
Again and again he lifted his head and 
thorax as far back as he could reach, then 
brought them into place again, until finally 
his body bounded just a little from the earth, 
and he turned partly on one side. Then he 
got a partial foothold and was soon on his 
feet. 

Then the boy placed the beetle on his back 
on a piece of wood. He clawed the air feebly 
for a moment ; then, realizing that there was 
nothing for him to lay hold of, he folded up 
his legs against his body, drew back his head 
and thorax, and gave a tremendous snap that 
lifted him into the air and sent him spinning 
over and over. He alighted on his feet and 
started to crawl away. The mice expected to 
see the boys catch him again and perhaps kill 
him, but they did nothing of the kind. 

" Let him go," said one. " He's performed 
enough for to-day." 

So the beetle crept into the old hollow 



THE ACROBAT 123 

stump, and quickly hid himself in the litter 
of decayed wood at the bottom. They often 
heard him of nights afterwards rustling about 
in the rubbish, and they sometimes saw 
him, but they never disturbed him. He used 
sometimes to go out and fly about, especially 
in the evenings, but always came back to the 
stump. 

If the mice were surprised that the boys 
allowed the beetle to go unharmed, they were 
much more surprised at the next thing that 
happened. The boys remained beside the 
old stump, but after a habit of theirs they 
kept so quiet that the little wild creatures 
began to be less afraid, and some of them 
actually forgot that the boys were there. 
The muskrat swam and dived in the brook 
before their very eyes, the little green heron 
flew down the stream from around the bend 
and began fishing for minnows close to them, 
and even Tan and Teckle began to run in 
and out of the hollow roots of the stump. 

Finally, forgetting the presence of the boys, 
Teckle ran around the stump to where they 



124 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



sat. One of the boys made a quick movement 
of his hand, a movement so rapid and so slight 
that even the heron did not perceive it, and 
Teckle was a prisoner. Wild-eyed and pant- 
ing, her eyes starting from her head with 
terror, she was lifted from the ground and 
held up so that all might see her. Surely, 
she thought, now she was to be put to death. 

11 Look ! " said the boy under his breath to 
the others. " It's a poor little mother mouse, 
and her babies aren't born yet. She's scared 
'most to death — -see how her heart beats." 

" Don't hurt her — let her go," said one. 
And to Teckle's amazement, instead of being 
dashed to death, she was set gently on the 
ground and allowed to run back into the 
stump again. 

" Truly, you never know what to expect 
from those boys," said the bat when he was 
told of Teckle's capture and release. " I have 
seen them kill mice in the barn — more in one 
day than I have claws on all my feet many 
times over. I have seen them in the evenings 
take fish from the water with sharp hooks. 



THE ACROBAT 



125 



I have seen them kill, and kill, and kill. 
And then, at times, they refuse to harm even 
the weakest of us. I wonder what they would 
do with me if they should catch me." 











& 






THE MOURNFUL 
SINGER 



FOR a long time Tan and Teckle had 
heard, at intervals, the song of a very 
mysterious neighbour, but they had 
never seen him. They knew the name that 
man has given him, for they asked the bat the 
very first time they heard his weird night 
call ; but they neither liked nor understood 
the name, so they called him a name of their 
own — the mournful singer. 

They never heard his song by day, nor for 
a long time after sunset, and it always ceased 
long before daybreak. It was only when the 
night was darkest, and in the most gloomy 

depths of the woods, that he lifted his voice. 

126 



THE MOURNFUL SINGER 127 

It must have been a song of pleasure — most 
likely a love song, as most real songs are ; but 
to Tan and Teckle it always sounded very 
mournful, though perhaps this was because it 
was always heard when the night was dark 
and still, and it seemed so far away in the 
depths of the dense woods. 

If it had not been for the three boys of the 
Bradley farm Tan and Teckle might never 
have learned of one of the queer habits of the 
mournful singer, nor how near a neighbour 
he was. The little field-mice were out for 
food late in the afternoon of a very warm 
autumn day, when they heard human beings 
in the woodland. It was the three boys on 
their way home after a hunt for ripe paw- 
paws in the creek bottoms. They were com- 
ing up the creek bank, and unless they turned 
aside they would pass very near to where Tan 
and Teckle were gathering food. So the mice 
crept under a fallen branch of a tree and lay 
quiet until they should leave. The boys 
came trooping along in Indian file, one be- 
hind the other, making very little noise, and 



128 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

n i n-wr-nT-iimn— nT-r-mw-i iiTTTrmnn 1 l inm — MKaj , nr-rr-T- .^l.h-i.n ■ ' ■■ 

watching and listening for what they might 
see or hear of the little wild people. 

Just when the boys were passing the spot 
where the field-mice lay hidden, and in 
another breath would have been gone, there 
tumbled into the dry leaves just before them 
what seemed to be a piece from the old rotten 
log beside the path. It rolled over on the 
dead leaves, and went bobbing along just in 
front of them with a most irregular motion. 

" Whippoorwill ! " exclaimed the foremost 
boy as they all three stopped and looked. 
And Tan and Teckle could see that it was, 
indeed, a bird, about the size of the sparrow 
hawk, but of a very curious colour. It was a 
mingling of dark brown with black markings 
and even tiny white splotches which made it 
resemble a piece of wood with the bark on it. 
The neck and legs were very short, but the 
wings and tail large. 

The poor bird seemed to be badly injured, 
and Tan and Teckle thought the boys must 
have stepped on it, for it sprawled helplessly 
on the ground, one wing hanging as if bro- 



THE MOURNFUL SINGER 129 

ken, while it fluttered pitifully along in front 
of the boys. The field-mice expected to see 
the boys give chase and kill the poor, crippled 
bird. 

In their earlier days in the woods the boys 
might have been deceived into chasing such 
a bird, but they had learned their lesson. 
They knew perfectly well that this was a 
mother bird pretending to be injured so that 
they would give chase, and she would lead 
them away from her eggs or young, which 
were probably very near. Many birds have 
this trick, and the boys had been duped often 
when they were younger. But this time they 
did not pursue the fluttering bird. They 
stood stock still and looked for the young 
birds which they felt sure w r ere near. 

" Eggs ! See them, there by the old log," 
exclaimed one boy. Sure enough, there were 
two eggs of white and brown, oddly mottled 
and looking very like pieces of the dead wood 
that lay about. " Not a sign of a nest, either," 
remarked another boy. It was true. The 
eggs lay among the leaves on the decaying 



130 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

bits of wood, with not even a little depression 
to hold them. 

When the boys had watched the antics of 
the mother bird for a time, they walked over 
and picked up the eggs. All the while they 
examined them the mother bird fluttered 
about their feet, looking up piteously at them 
with large, dark eyes, but never uttering a 
sound. It seemed that the boys at any mo- 
ment could have stooped and picked her up, 
and they certainly could have struck her with 
a stick, but they merely watched her, and 
made no effort to harm her. When they had 
finished looking at the eggs, they laid them 
carefully on the ground and went on their 
way. 

The mother bird flew instantly to her eggs, 
and stood over them, looking to see whether 
they had been injured. She made a queer, 
crooning kind of call, and her mate came fly- 
ing to her, keeping very close to the ground. 
He alighted by her side, and for a moment 
they stood together over the eggs. Then they 
did a very astonishing thing. Each bird took 



THE MOURNFUL SINGER 131 



an egg into its enormous mouth, and together 
they flew away into the depths of the woods. 
Tan and Teckle had seen many a four-legged 
mother move her little ones by carrying them 
in her mouth, but this was the first time they 
had ever seen a bird do it. 

" Yes, I have seen the whippoorwills do 
that," said the bat when they told him what 
they had witnessed. "They never build a 
nest, but the mother bird lays her eggs in the 
leaves in the darkest part of the woods, usu- 
ally beside an old log." 

" Those birds look like owls, except their 
eyes," remarked Teckle. " Do they catch and 
eat creatures as owls do? " 

"They eat nothing but insects, just as I 
do," replied the bat. " They fly by night as 
the owl does, and they see by night as well as 
the owl, and they never sing but in the mid- 
dle of the night ; but they are very weak and 
defenseless, and not at all like owls in their 
way of living. They are much better behaved 
than owls." 

" I think it must have been the whippoor- 



132 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

will that we saw all through the summer, 
flying about in flocks in the evenings catching 
insects/' ventured Tan, " but they flew by day 
sometimes, and I plainly heard them calling 
1 sprake ! sprake ! ' many times. And they 
used to fly very high, and then dive down 
almost to the ground and make a very 
strange, booming sound. " 

" They were not whippoorwills at all," de- 
clared the bat. " The whippoorwill never 
flies by day unless disturbed, never sings by 
day, never sings on the wing, and does not 
fly in flocks. It keeps close to the ground, 
and often alights, flying but a little way at a 
time. The birds you saw are bigger and 
stronger, and fly evenings and cloudy days, 
and sometimes in the sunlight. Often they 
come out in great flocks when a storm is ris- 
ing. Men call them goatsuckers, from a very 
foolish belief that they take milk from goats. 
They also call them night-hawks, nightjars, and 
even bullbats — as if they are at all like a bat ! " 

" They do fly evenings, and they do eat 
insects." 






THE MOURNFUL SINGER 133 

"Well, does that make them bats? They 
wear feathers instead of hair, they lay eggs 
instead of bringing forth their young alive, 
they have beaks instead of teeth — oh, it's 
foolish to try to tell all the differences ! They 
are only birds." 

"It is very strange," mused Teckle, "that 
they had their nest so very near our stump 
and we never guessed it — never even saw one 
of them, and never heard them sing close at 
hand." 

" Not very strange unless you had been out 
in the darkest part of the night looking for 
them. They are very shy, and make almost 
no noise at all, especially near their eggs. By 
day they sit very still, and most of the time 
are sound asleep. As to. their living near 
you, they may have brought those eggs here 
only a day or two ago. Whenever anything 
disturbs a whippoor will's eggs they move. I 
have even heard that they will take their 
young ones in their great mouths and fly 
away with them if they are in danger, but I 
have never seen them do that." 



134 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



" Does the nightjar make the same kind of 
a nest?" 

" Yes, much the same kind of a nest — only 
it oughtn't to be called a nest, for it isn't. In- 
stead of a dark, damp place such as the whip- 
poorwill likes, the nightjar chooses a dry, 
sunny place. The mother bird lays her eggs 
on the ground, usually where it is rocky ; and 
the eggs are brown and white, just like the 
mottled pebbles, so that they can hardly be 
found at all. 

" Maybe that is as good a way as any, and 
it certainly saves the whippoorwill time and 
trouble when she wants to move, but some- 
how I always like to see a bird take pains 
with a nest, like the oriole or the barn swal- 
low or the robin." 



Mips 





OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 

FROM early spring until 
winter came there was al- 
ways music in the woodlands of the 
old Bradley farm. Day or night there was 
seldom a moment when one could not hear 
some little wild creature. Birds and locusts 
and grasshoppers and squirrels sang or fiddled 
or barked by day, and owls and whippoor- 
wills and toads and frogs and katydids and 
scores of others did their part by night. And, 
among them all, they kept up one long con- 
cert from one sunset to another. 

Until one warm night in early fall Tan and 

Teckle had thought that the music of all 

135 



136 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

frogs and toads was confined to chirps and 
trills. They had seen the myriads of green 
and brown frogs that sat among the grass and 
reeds and rushes along the creek bank and 
shrilled forth their calls. They had often 
watched Old Croaker, the fat toad who usu- 
ally slept away the day in the shelter of a 
hollow root leading into their stump — they 
had listened with admiration when he lifted 
his shrill, tremolo voice and joined in the 
chorus. This, they thought, was the extent 
of the musical ability of that family. 

But one evening when they were playing 
back and forth between the home stump and 
the bank of Pleasant Run, they heard from 
away down Nineveh creek a deep, hoarse, 
rumbling call that they had noticed more 
than once in the summer but had never in- 
quired about. Now it seemed much nearer 
than they had ever heard it before, and they 
stopped to listen, while Old Croaker trilled 
away at his evensong. 

" Gro-o-o-om ! Gro-o-o-o-om ! " 

The voice boomed and boomed away at 



OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 137 

short intervals, and it seemed to the field- 
mice like the noise made by the bulls in the 
woodland pasture. 

" What creature is that? " inquired Tan of 
Old Croaker. " It must be one of the farm- 
er's big animals, it makes so much noise." 

" Not a bit bigger than I am," replied Old 
Croaker. " Not a bit." 

The great toad went on with his song, but 
Tan and Teckle were curious, and not satisfied 
with so brief an answer. 

" I don't understand how he can have such 
a deep, deep voice and make such a loud noise 
if he is so small," objected Teckle. 

11 I'm not small. I'm a very fair size — a 
very fair size, indeed. And I ought to know 
whether that fellow is the bigger. He's my 
cousin." 

" What do you call him ? Are you sure he 
is no bigger than you ? " 

" Not a bit bigger — well, it may be a trifle 
longer than I am, but certainly not so plump. 
I'm quite sure he's not so noble in girth as I. 
His name? They call him the bullfrog. 



138 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

That's because he bawls out like a bull with 
that awful voice of his." 

" Is he fierce? Is he dangerous? Is he a 
meat eater?" demanded Tan and Teckle, 
both talking at once. 

" 1 believe he would eat you if you happened' 
in his way, " replied Old Croaker reflectively. 
Since he had been eaten himself, and had lived 
to tell of it, Old Croaker talked a bit too freely 
about being eaten, the little field-mice thought. 
But they were trying to learn about this new 
neighbour the bullfrog, and they held their 
peace. Old Croaker went on : 

" No, he's not fierce. He couldn't well be 
fierce, for he has no weapons to fight with, 
any more than I have. He can neither bite, 
nor sting, nor scratch, nor stab with quills, 
nor even throw ill-smelling scent on an 
enemy." 

"Then how does he catch creatures to eat? 
Didn't you say he is a meat eater? " demanded 
Tan. 

" I didn't say he is a meat eater, but he is 
— in a wa}^. He eats whatever he can catch, 




SHE BROUGHT HER LITTLE ONES DOWN FOR THEIR 
FIRST SWIM" 



OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 139 

but it is chiefly insects, slugs, snails, and such. 
But I did see him, once, eat a duckling." 

" How terrible ! " exclaimed Teckle. 

But instead of .thinking it terrible, Old 
Croaker seemed actually proud that his cousin 
with the powerful voice could manage a duck- 
ling, so he went on with the story: 

" It was right here in this stream of Pleas- 
ant Run, too. My cousin — the very one you 
hear down there now — had come up here 
with his mate in the spring to find a nice, 
still pool for her eggs. A little, wild, summer 
duck had a nest back in the reeds, and it 
happened that she brought her little ones 
down for their first swim the very morning 
that the frogs came up the stream. The 
mother duck got her little ones into the 
water, and kept them beside her, very close 
to the bank, so that they could hide among 
the reeds in case of danger. They swam right 
up to where that cousin of mine was sitting 
in the grass. He made one grand leap and 
seized a duckling and swallowed it as easily 
as I could a fly. It was splendidly done." 



140 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

Afraid of giving offense if they told how 
they considered such a thing, the mice kept 
silent for a moment. Then Teckle asked 
what the bullfrog gets to eat in winter. 

"He doesn't eat then. He goes quietly to 
sleep, as all creatures should, and sleeps until 
spring comes, when Mother Nature wakens 
the insects for his food, and calls him to get 
up and eat them." 

" Does he climb up a tree and get into the 
hollow ? That is the way our cousin, the bat, 
sleeps." This was the next question, for one 
never got much of a story out of Old Croaker 
except by dragging it forth by piecemeal. 

"Up a tree! He up a tree? Arid what 
would he climb a tree for?" demanded Old 
Croaker indignantly. " That is a trick of the 
tree-frog, and even he doesn't sleep there in 
winter. No. The bullfrog dives down to the 
bottom of a still pool of water, where the mud 
is soft and deep. There he digs a deep hole 
for himself in the mud where it can never 
freeze, and there he sleeps all winter long, 
harming nobody, and in no danger of being 



OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 141 

harmed by any one. Climb a tree ! " Old 
Croaker again exclaimed, half indignant and 
half amused. "You'll be wanting to know 
next whether I hang myself up by the heels in 
a tree like the bat." 

They let Old Croaker sing for a little while, 
just to soothe his ruffled temper. Then one 
of the mice asked : 

" Is the bullfrog hatched from an egg, or 
— is he " 

" Of course he is, just as the toads are — just 
as I was." 

Seeing that the little field-mice were very 
eager to know more of this mighty cousin of 
his, who some day might eat them, Old 
Croaker gave up trying to sing, and told them 
his life story in brief, without further 
questioning. 

" Yes, he is hatched from an egg, but he 
isn't anything like a frog when he is hatched. 
He's all head, and mouth, and tail and appe- 
tite. Not a sign of a leg has he. No lungs, 
either, but gills so that he can breathe the 
water, in which he lives all the time. And no 



142 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

long tongue, either, to flick the flies and moths 
and slugs into his mouth and eat them. 
Instead of a tongue he has an immense num- 
ber of sharp little teeth. Oh, I tell you, we 
are a fierce lot of meat eaters when we are 
little. Why, we even eat each other if there 
is nothing else to be had. I remember once 
I ate two of my brothers — or helped to eat 
them. But I was a tadpole then, and not a 
toad at all. 

" After a while the tadpole begins to sprout 
a pair of hind legs, and as they grow his tail 
shrinks up and disappears entirely. Doesn't 
break off, but just fades away and disappears. 
And the fore legs sprout and grow, too, later 
on. And the lungs grow, and as they get 
larger the gills wither up. And this goes on 
until some fine day the tadpole has legs and 
no tail, lungs and no gills, a tongue and no 
teeth, and lives on land and breathes air 
instead of water. Then he is either a toad or 
a frog, and not a tadpole any longer. Why, 
such a change is more wonderful than a 
caterpillar changing into a butterfly, for we 



OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 143 

do not go to sleep to make it, but go on 
moving and eating and swimming and grow- 
ing all the time." 

" If you and the bullfrog are so much alike, 
how did you know which to be when you left 
the water ? " demanded Tan. 

Old Croaker stroked his face slowly and re- 
flectively with one hand while he blinked 
wisely. 

" I never had to think about it. Good old 
Mother Nature had arranged all that. I was 
a toad, thanks to her, not a frog. Since you 
mention it, how did you know whether to be 
a field-mouse and live in the woodland, or 
the kind of mouse that lives in a man's 
house? " 

This was more than the field-mice had ex- 
pected, so they sat silent. Old Croaker re- 
sumed his song presently, and they ran into 
the stump. 

It so happened that the little field-mice 
witnessed the downfall of the mighty bull- 
frog, and again the three boys of the Bradley 
farm had a hand in what happened. The 



144 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

boys had been fishing in Nineveh creek, where 
were a few bass, some gamey little sunfish, 
and a great many catfish and suckers. They 
had stayed on the creek until dusk fell, and 
were taking a short way home, right past the 
stump where lived Tan and Teckle. When 
they had come to the old water gate across 
Pleasant Run, and were about to walk across 
on the old log, the foremost boy suddenly 
stopped, and at a quick motion of his 
hand behind him the other two stood mo- 
tionless. 

" Look at the edge of the water/' said the 
foremost boy in a low tone ; " there's a bull- 
frog as big as a cat." 

Of course the bullfrog was not that large, 
but he certainly did look to be a monster. 

" Drop a hook down to him and see if he'll 
take it," suggested one, ever ready for an ex- 
periment. The hindmost boy stepped back 
out of sight of the bullfrog, unwound a line, 
and presently a bare fish-hook waved to and 
fro just before the bullfrog's nose. He never 
seemed to see it. 






OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 145 

"Try him with a worm," suggested the 
second boy. 

So a wriggling worm was impaled on the 
hook and dragged in the mud in front of the 
bullfrog. Again he refused the offer. 

" I know what'll bring him. Daddy Roth 
told me they'll go wild if you show them red 
flannel." 

There was no flannel at hand, but presently 
a piece was torn from a red bandana handker- 
chief, strung on the hook, and waved in front 
of the bullfrog. He seemed seized with rage 
exactly as a bull is when a red flag is shown 
him. He leaped eagerly at the bit of cloth, 
missed it, leaped again and seized it. Then 
the boy gave a twitch of the rod, and the bull- 
frog was lifted on the hook, kicking and claw- 
ing wildly. 

Then Tan and Teckle saw, from their 
hiding place on the bank, that the bullfrog 
was indeed much longer than Old Croaker, 
but also much less " noble of girth " as he had 
said. They could plainly see the long, mus- 
cular legs, the webbed feet, the green back 



146 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and lighter belly, and the great, staring eyes. 
For a moment he hung, kicking in the air ; 
then a boy took him off the hook and dropped 
him into the bag where he carried the fish, 
and bore him away. 

" Oh, they're going to eat him," gasped 
Teckle, awe-stricken. 

They hurried back to the old hollow stump 
and told Old Croaker what had befallen his 
cousin. 

" Will they eat him?" demanded Teckle. 

" Nobody ever knows what a boy will do," 
was the sage reply. " I have seen them kill 
creatures to eat, and I have seen them catch 
creatures and refuse to harm them. Men do 
eat bullfrogs, but what these boys will do is 
more than I can tell." 

The mice, too, knew that the boys were 
sometimes merciful, for did they not once 
capture Teckle and let her go unhurt? They 
never did know certainly what became of the 
bullfrog. They often heard, after that night, 
a hoarse, booming voice away up the stream 
nearer the house, roaring out " Gro-o-o-om ! 



OLD CROAKER'S COUSIN 147 

Gro-o-o-o-om I " And there was a rumor 
among the little wild people that the boys 
had turned the frog loose in the presence of a 
cat to see what would happen. That cer- 
tainly sounded like them, and Tan and 
Teckle liked to think that the bullfrog they 
heard so often thereafter was the very same 
that they had seen captured. But they never 
were quite sure. 

" Why should we trouble about it? " asked 
Tan one night. " Didn't Old Croaker say 
that he would eat us if he could? " 

" Yes," agreed Teckle. " And besides, he 
ate the duckling." 










t if 

in 

1] ^f|9^li¥f 




II If e^S^ , 

ill 

iw 1 



THE SOIL MAKER 



HERE had been a warm au- 
tumn rain, but just before sun- 
set the clouds cleared away and 
the sun shone in almost level lines across the 
woodland, reaching spots which at midday 
were always in shadow, and turning almost 
the light of a bright noontide into the most 
retired nooks. 

This bright light, thrown suddenly into 
the hitherto shady places, revealed a number 
of robins running about in the grass under 
the trees, and acting very strangely. One 

would run across the grass for quite a dis- 

148 



THE SOIL MAKER 149 

tance, then stop and stand perfectly still, 
seemingly looking at the ground. Some- 
times he would run farther and stop again ; 
sometimes he would thrust his beak into the 
ground and seem to be shaking something. 
Then, with head cocked pertly on one side, 
he would look and listen at the spot where he 
had been poking into the dirt. Occasionally 
one would seize what seemed to be a blade of 
grass, pull with all his might, and when he 
had torn it loose from the ground, would 
swallow it greedily. 

"I wonder why the robins act so queerly 
about that grass," remarked Teckle, the 
little field-mouse. " If they like grass I 
should think they would stand in one 
place and eat as much as they want, like 
the cow." 

" Who said they are eating grass?" de- 
manded the bat, who had climbed out to the 
top of the hollow stump, and was making 
ready to fly forth for the night. 

" Nobody said so, but I can see them run- 
ning about, and every little while one pulls 



150 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

up a blade of grass, and swallows it — at least 
I suppose it is grass." 

''Robins never eat grass. Haven't you 
learned that yet? Those are the world's first 
farmers they are eating." 

Tan and Teckle had learned not to reply 
when the bat spoke in riddles, for they knew 
that he would see that they did not under- 
stand, and would say the same thing in 
another way. Presently he went on : 

" The robins are eating earthworms, and 
not grass at all. They have to be very cun- 
ning and very quick to catch a worm, though 
he has neither eyes nor ears nor nose nor feet," 

That sounded much like another riddle, 
and the field-mice waited to hear more. 
When the bat did not go on, Tan demanded 
to know how, if he can neither see nor hear 
nor smell nor run, the worm can know when 
the robin is after him ; and how, when he 
does know it, he can either fight or get away. 

" He can neither fight nor run," replied the 
bat, " yet it is not easy to catch him. Think 
it over." 



THE SOIL MAKER 151 

And, delighted at having puzzled the sim- 
ple-minded little field-mice, the bat flapped 
away into the dusk and left them. Just then 
the sun dropped below the horizon, and al- 
most immediately it was dark in the wood- 
land. With many a cry of "quit-quit" called 
to each other, the robins flitted away to their 
roosting-place, and Tan and Teckle could 
watch them no farther that night. But an- 
other day they inquired farther, and heard 
many wonderful things of the earthworm, 
which they had sometimes seen but of whom 
they knew so little. 

It is quite true, as the bat said, that the 
earthworm has neither eyes nor ears nor nose 
nor feet ; but he has what answers very well 
for all his needs. If he did have any of these 
organs they would only be in his way — very 
possibly he did have some or all of them at 
one time, and good old Mother Nature took 
them away when she found that he did not 
use them. For the earthworm lives almost 
all his life under the surface of the ground, 
where there is no light at all ; so of what use 



152 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

would eyes be to him? He would only get 
them full of dirt if he opened them, so he 
might much better have none. 

And what is the good of a nose when there 
is nothing which one needs to smell? The 
worm bores his way through the soft earth, 
and when he is close enough to a thing to 
smell it he is also close enough to touch and 
taste it. So if he ever had the sense of smell 
Mother Nature took it away when she saw 
that he no longer needed it in his way of liv- 
ing. The same is true of ears — living always 
underground, he has no need of them. And 
legs would be worse than useless — they would 
actually be in his way. 

Now, to take the place of all these organs 
which the worm does not need, he has a very 
delicate and sensitive skin. He cannot see, 
but he can feel the light. He knows instantly 
whether he is in the darkness, which he loves, 
or in the light, which he fears. And if strong 
light shines upon him he starts to bore into the 
ground as quickly as he can to get away from 
it, for if he remains in the light long he dies. 



THE SOIL MAKER 153 

This same sensitive skin serves the earth- 
worm instead of ears. He has no need to 
hear the song of the birds, or the chirp of the 
grasshopper, or the wind among the leaves, or 
the call of animals one to another. But he 
can feel the jar of the footsteps of an ap- 
proaching animal when it is still a long way 
off; and he can feel the patter of the rain- 
drops as they strike the earth, and he creeps 
to the mouth of his burrow to enjoy the cool 
rain. 

For the earthworm has a burrow which is 
his home, just as the old hollow oak stump 
was Tan and Teckle's home, and the tunnel 
beneath it was the muskrat's home. How 
does he get the earth out of his way when he 
digs, since he is so soft and has no feet for 
digging? He is much stronger than he looks, 
and with his sharp snout he pushes the dirt 
aside and packs it solidly against the sides of 
his burrow. Also, he often eats the dirt to 
get it out of his way. Queer, but true. He 
swallows the fine dirt, sand, decayed leaves 
and roots, and even bits of stone that are 



154 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

quite large for him — swallows them and lets 
them pass right through his long body. But 
he creeps out of his burrow to allow this dirt 
and sand and gravel to pass from his body, 
and so leaves it on top of the ground. 

That is what the bat meant when he called 
the earthworm the first farmer. He actually 
does dig up and loosen the ground all the 
time, so that air and water can sink into the 
ground, and the tiny roots of grass and other 
plants can find their way through the soil. 
Very wise men, who have spent many years 
studying the earthworm and his ways, tell us 
that in five years the worms will swallow and 
carry to the surface and leave there enough 
dirt to cover a field an inch deep with fine, 
soft dirt. It is impossible to estimate the 
good these poor creatures do by keeping the 
soil always light and porous, stirring and 
moving the dirt year after year, and bringing 
to the surface soil that has not had air or sun- 
shine for many years, actually making soil. 

In early summer, when the weather is 
warm and the ground is damp with frequent 



THE SOIL MAKER 155 

rains, the earthworm lives close to the surface 
of the ground. And when it rains he crawls 
part way out of his burrow to enjoy the water. 
Sometimes he crawls entirely out and trav- 
els along on top of the ground. At night 
he creeps to the mouth of his burrow and 
stretches himself forth, careful to keep the tip 
of his body inside so that in case of sudden 
danger he can draw back into the burrow al- 
most as a piece of rubber when it is stretched 
and one end is loosed. 

That is what was happening when Tan and 
Teckle saw the robins after the worms. They 
had crept partly out of their burrows to enjoy 
the rain, and the robins were surprising them, 
and pulling them forth and eating them. 
Sometimes the worm got back into his bur- 
row. In that case the robin thrust his beak 
into the ground and, by shaking it rapidly, 
he jarred the dirt and excited the worm — per- 
haps he thought it was rain — and he crept 
out, only to be caught and eaten. 

In the winter the earthworm goes down to 
the bottom of his burrow, two or three or even 



156 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

four feet deep, and goes to sleep. He might 
as well — the top of the ground is frozen so 
hard that he can neither bore through it nor 
eat of it, and neither is there anything else to 
eat. So he makes a little bedchamber at the 
bottom of his burrow, and there he curls up 
for the winter, sometimes with several other 
worms in the same bed, and there he sleeps 
until warm weather. 

There is one curious thing which earth- 
worms do in this winter bedroom which all 
the wise men of the earth have not yet been 
able to understand. They take to bed with 
them a number of rounded bits of stone. 
These pebbles are too large to be eaten, and 
nobody can explain what the worms do with 
them, or why they want them. 

Earthworms also go deep into the ground 
in late summer and fall if the surface of the 
ground becomes dry. They must have mois- 
ture or they die. So when the earth begins to 
parch they begin to bore deeper where the 
dirt is still moist ; and they will go very deep 
indeed if necessary to keep where the ground 



THE SOIL MAKER 157 

is soft and damp. Then, at the first rain- 
storm, they come creeping to the surface 
again, and stretch forth from their burrows 
and enjoy the cool water. 

The worm crawls by means of tiny thorns 
on his sides and under parts, so small they 
cannot be seen without a magnifying glass. 
They are like wee bristles. They can be felt 
if the worm is drawn through the fingers. 
These little bristles — setae they are called — 
hold the hind part of the body firm while the 
worm stretches the front part of his body a 
long way ahead. Then, with the bristles, he 
holds the front end steady while he draws up 
the hind part, and so on. He seems to move 
slowly, yet it is surprising how far an earth- 
worm will travel in an hour. But he leaves 
his burrow only when necessary, for he is 
quite defenseless, and as the bat said, can 
neither fight nor run. 

Night is the chosen time for the earthworm 
to enjoy life. He fears the light, but when 
darkness comes on he stretches out from his 
front door, feeling his way in this direction 



158 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and that, finding a leaf to drag down into his 
burrow and eat ; or perhaps he finds himself 
a mate. It is one peculiarity of earthworms, 
shared by several of what are called the lower 
forms of life, that each one is both a father 
and a mother. Each lays a number of eggs, 
enveloped in a sort of cocoon which is made 
in the odd-looking, thick, smooth, glistening 
ring which is found on every earthworm 
about one-quarter of the way back from his 
head. The little worms hatch and make 
their way out of the cocoon, and then they 
have nothing to do except to bore in the 
ground and eat. But they must be careful to 
keep under the ground as much as possible, 
and out of reach of robins, and of boys going 
fishing. 





STRIPED FACE * \Wj 

CERTAINLY it was no fault of .« 
Striped Face that he had been 
caught when a tiny cub and brought 
up to be the dependent, the pet and plaything 
of mankind instead of living a free and wild 
life in the woodland. He could not be justly 
blamed, and yet the whole woodland commu- 
nity of little wild people looked upon it as a 
deep disgrace, and not one of them would have 
anything to do with him when he began to 
visit that particular corner of the Bradley 
farm where lived Tan and Teckle and their 

many neighbours. 

159 



160 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

The three boys of the Bradley farm were to 
blame in this, as in a great many matters 
which made life so exciting and so uncertain 
among the little wild folk. For in their 
younger days the boys took great delight in 
the old-fashioned Southern pastime of 'coon 
hunting with dogs at night. On one of these 
excursions they found the hollow tree in 
which Striped Face and his four brothers and 
sisters lay hidden, and carried them all away 
into captivity. It was not in the nature of a 
boy to set any of them at liberty ; yet neither 
could they bring themselves to kill them as 
they were bidden by their elders. They com- 
promised by giving the other four baby 'coons 
away to other boys, and Striped Face was the 
one they elected to keep for themselves. 

The dogs viewed this arrangement with 
open displeasure. In their minds a 'coon was 
made to be hunted, and when anything is 
hunted and found it is to be killed. But the 
dogs were not consulted. A box was made 
into a cage and put into the back yard of the 
farmhouse, and in it Striped Face was kept. 



STRIPED FACE 161 

He was too tiny at first to show much fear or 
resentment, and when he had been taught to 
drink warm milk, and eat sugar and bits of 
fruit, he gave himself up to the delights of 
eating, and actually began to like being a 
prisoner. And long before he was strong 
enough to fight he was very fond of the boys, 
and romped and played with them by the 
hour, and never thought of trying to escape. 

But the dogs never forgave him, and never 
grew reconciled to having him about the 
place. They spent much of their time at first 
hanging about Striped Face's cage, trying to 
catch the little fellow. They would lie by 
the hour beside his box, sniffing at him and 
sometimes barking, until the boys drove them 
away. And one night while the dogs were 
thus occupied, so busy with Striped Face that 
they could not detect the scent of another an- 
imal, the mother of Striped Face came to the 
farmhouse. Perhaps she was seeking her 
stolen little one ; perhaps she was merely 
hungiy and happened to come there at that 
particular time. Whatever caused her visit, 



162 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

she took occasion to dig a little hole under the 
edge of a coop on the ground, thrust in a long, 
flexible paw very like a hand, and drag out 
and kill nine ducklings that were sleeping 
under the wings of an old hen, their foster 
mother. 

Oh, there was no mistaking who did it ! 
At least it was one of Striped Face's family, 
for the tracks she left in the loose dirt showed 
that very, very plainly. The three boys 
agreed among themselves that it was Striped 
Face's mother come a-hunting him, though 
they did not tell their belief to any one. And 
the dogs, too, knew that it was a 'coon, for 
when the boys led them to the ravaged coop, 
and, with many upbraidings because they had 
not kept better watch, ordered them to follow 
the trail, they started out with the bark they 
always gave when trailing a 'coon. 

The trail by that time was very old, and 
Striped Face's mother was a 'coon of many 
years and much experience. She had been 
hunted many a time, and knew what to do. 
So instead of returning directly to her den, 






STRIPED FACE 103 

she travelled far that night, crossed and re- 
crossed her tracks, and spent much time in the 
water, which leaves no trail, so that the dogs, 
after running up and down the woodland for 
an hour, wailing dismally on the cold trail, 
gave up the chase and went home. 

Before he had been a captive many weeks, 
Striped Face was fitted with a little collar and 
chain, and was allowed to play about the door 
of his cage, inside or outside as he might 
choose. He was nimble enough to get in 
before a dog could catch him; and besides, 
the boys, by dint of hard words and a few 
floggings, had taught the dogs that this partic- 
ular 'coon was part of the family, and not to 
be disturbed. So in time they learned to 
avoid the cage, though they often cast longing 
looks at it, and growled under their breath 
whenever they saw Striped Face. 

And he— the rogue grew fat and sleek and 
handsome with high living and few cares. 
He learned to climb up on the boys' shoul- 
ders, and poke his feet — so like little hands — 
into their pockets to find sugar, or cand}', or 



164 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

bits of cake or fruit. Sometimes a boy would 
tease him by holding a bit of candy close in 
his hand. Striped Face would work very 
gently for a time, scratching lightly for it 
with his nails, thrusting his long, slender 
tongue between the boy's fingers, and coaxing 
all the while with an odd little whine. But 
if none of these measures sufficed, he would 
use his teeth — very gently at first, then more 
and more vigorously until the hand was 
opened and he got his reward. 

When he was almost grown Striped Face 
was freed even of the collar and chain, and 
was allowed to roam about the place at will. 
The boys kept close watch over him at first, 
directed his movements, and at night fastened 
him in his cage. But after a time this was 
thought unnecessary, and he was allowed to go 
and come at will. And, being a night roamer, 
he spent his nights investigating the farm, and 
much of his days in the cage asleep. 

Of course one of the very first sins Striped 
Face committed when he was given his lib- 
erty was to steal eggs ; but eggs were very 



STRIPED FACE 165 

plentiful and very cheap on the Bradley farm, 
and the boys kept his pilferings secret as far 
as they could, so that there was little com- 
plaint about the eggs. But in his prowlings 
about the kitchen door when he was not 
watched he often found other things which he 
could carry away and eat, and more than 
once there were threats that unless that 'coon 
mended his ways the boys must banish him. 

When Striped Face attained his full size, 
because he had been well fed, had never 
known cold, nor illness, nor want, he was one 
of the largest 'coons ever seen in that country. 
He grew less and less afraid of the dogs, partly 
because he fully realized that the} 7 were not 
allowed to molest him, and partly because he 
was confident of his own strength and sharp 
teeth. For a 'coon is a bold and skillful 
fighter. He proved this one day. He had 
long ago acquired the habit of teasing the 
dogs, provoking them to chase him, and then 
climbing a tree or walking serenely along the 
top of the fence where they could not reach 
him, spitting at them while they barked 



166 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

below, until a boy drove them away. One 
day Striped Face saw a dog eating something 
in the yard. He was not hungry, but in a 
spirit of bravado he ambled up and snarled 
at the dog, meaning to drive him away. The 
dog was not disposed to give up a bone he had 
found for himself, so he snarled back, and in 
a moment a noisy fight was in progress. 

It happened that the other dogs were not at 
the house, or they might have joined and 
made the combat unequal. It also happened 
that the boys were not at home, or they would 
have stopped the fight. The women of the 
household, thinking to separate the animals, 
threw buckets of cold water on them. This 
had no effect on their tempers, but it quickly 
made the ground very slippery, which was 
exactly w T hat Striped Face would have chosen. 
With his broad, flat feet and long claws he 
could easily stand on the muddy surface, 
while at every lunge the dog slipped, and 
often fell. And it was a badly clawed, bitten 
and humiliated dog which was finally rescued 
when one of the hired men, hearing the com- 



STRIPED FACE 167 

motion, ran from the barn and put a stop to 
the battle. 

All that summer Striped Face lived in his 
cage in the back yard of the farmhouse, get- 
ting experience. Night after night he wan- 
dered farther and farther away, tried his 
hand at fishing for minnows, learned to catch 
frogs and grasshoppers, climbed corn stalks 
for the tender ears, stole eggs, and the farmer 
strongly suspected that he also stole an oc- 
casional young duck or chicken, but this could 
not be definitely proven unless the boys had 
chosen to speak, which they never did. And 
all the while Striped Face was learning how 
to take care of himself, he was also learning 
the intimate ways of boys and dogs, which was 
to be very useful knowledge in days to come. 

Finally came the day when Striped Face ran 
away. If there was any particular reason for 
it nobody ever knew, not even the boys. 
They came to the conclusion, after many talks, 
that old Mother Nature had called him to 
take up the wild life, and he could not resist, 
At first it was feared that some hunter had 



168 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

caught him, or that some accident had befallen 
him, and the boys sought everywhere, calling 
their pet. But afterwards it become very clear 
that he had gone away of his own accord, and 
was living the life that suited him best. He 
never again went to the farmhouse except 
when he wanted poultry or eggs. 

And of all places in that wide stretch of 
woodland and hill and river bottom, what 
place should the renegade Striped Face 
choose for his den but a hollow box elder tree 
on the bank of Nineveh creek only a little 
way from the hollow stump where lived Tan 
and Teckle, the little field-mice ! There was 
great excitement among the little wild people 
when this happened. Every one was sure 
that the boys and dogs would come a-hunting 
to that part of the woodland, usually so quiet 
and retired, and that every nest and hiding 
place there would be found. 

But the cunning of Striped Face averted 
any such calamity. He had picked on that 
spot for his home, and it was part of his duty 
not to lead boys and dogs to it. In the 



STRIPED FACE 169 

daytime he slept in his hollow tree, snug and 
safe. When dusk fell he came forth, and 
nothing for miles around was safe from him. 
He caught frogs and minnows, he ate birds 
when he could get them, he captured and ate 
crawfish, he gorged himself on wild mulber- 
ries and young corn in the field, and more 
than once he came sniffing and scratching 
about the stump where lived Tan and Teckle, 
whom no doubt he would have eaten if he 
could have caught them. 

They saw him sometimes, on his excursions 
along Pleasant Run brook, and they marvelled 
at his trick of washing everything so carefully 
before he ate it. No matter whether it was 
fruit or flesh, if he could get into the water 
with it he scrubbed and scoured it almost to 
shreds as he ate. And when he came in from 
field or forest, where he had eaten without 
water, he spent a long time washing and 
scrubbing himself. 

But for all his disagreeable qualities as a 
neighbour, Striped Face was careful to put 
the dogs off the scent before coming home, 



170 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and his very nearness to Tan and Teckle's 
home probably served to keep the boys and 
dogs away. For he made his forays on the 
chickens and ducks early in the night, so 
that he always had plenty of time to lay out 
a devious trail which the dogs could not fol- 
low. After winding in and out for a mile or 
so he would get into the creek and wade and 
swim a long way, leaving absolutely no trail. 
Another trick he learned was to climb into a 
tree from the top of a fence, and leap down 
from the farther side, to deceive the dogs. 
He had a hundred tricks, and usually he was 
fast asleep in his box elder tree while the 
dogs were panting on his track. 

The doings of Striped Face himself would 
make a long, long story, for he lived in the 
woodland for many a year, and proved him- 
self so cunning and resourceful, and such an 
enemy to mankind, that finally he was quite 
forgiven for having been a dependent of man. 
But Tan and Teckle could never quite like 
him because he was a meat eater, and at any 
time might try to eat them. 




'ANOTHER TRICK HE LEARNED WAS TO CLIMB INTO A TREE 
FROM THE TOP OF A FENCE " 



ft* £ 





fe/& 



THE SCOURGE OF MAN 

HAT is the muskrat do- 
ing out of his burrow 
at this hour ? " asked 
Teckle, the little field-mouse, looking from 
the doorway of the old stump in which she 
and Tan lived. 

" If that is the muskrat he has been travel- 
ling in the sun so long that it has burned 
him gray," replied Tan. 

They both looked intently at a brownish- 
gray form that came scurrying across the 
woodland, though it was not yet mid-after- 
noon. He was really about the size of the 
muskrat, but as Tan had observed, the colour 
was not the same — it was lighter. But there 

were the same short ears, blunt muzzle, hair- 

171 



172 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

less and scaly tail, and the peculiar, leaping 
gait was very similar. Every little way the 
stranger stopped to look about him, and 
always he paused in a clump of weeds, or 
under a fallen branch of a tree, or beside a 
log. And when he moved, he went warily, 
and seemed to be on his guard against ene- 
mies. 

What most concerned Tan and Teckle was 
that the unknown was making directly 
towards their hollow stump. What if he 
should be some strange and terrible kind of 
meat eater ! They watched in silence, and 
with growing uneasiness. Finally when he 
w r as so near that it seemed that he must see 
them, with one accord they turned and 
scampered back into their hollow stump, and 
deep down under the ground into a long, 
slender, hollow root. 

Sure enough, the stranger came right into 
their stump. They heard him pause at the 
entrance and sniff inquiringly. They heard 
him creep into the body of the stump. He 
rustled around for a time as if he were either 



THE SCOURGE OF MAN 173 

seeking food, or finding out all about the in- 
side of the stump. After a time he was still, 
and they thought he must have fallen asleep. 

After waiting for what seemed to them 
a very long time, the timid field-mice ven- 
tured to climb up and peep at the intruder 
who had taken possession of their home. 
They knew, both from his actions and from 
his scent, that he was no muskrat. Still, 
when they came to look closely at him, he 
was very like, except for the colour and the 
lack of webbed feet. He was resting quietly 
on the bits of decayed wood at the bottom of 
the stump. If he heard or smelled the field- 
mice he gave no sign. 

" May you never be frightened," said Tan 
by way of greeting when he could muster up 
the courage. 

" Plenty of food for you without the labour 
of getting it," responded the stranger, looking 
calmly at the frightened pair. 

All the time, they were ready, at the slight- 
est sign of anger on the part of the stranger, 
to scurry down to the very end of a long, hoi- 



174 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



low root, where they knew his plump body 
could not follow them. 

" Do you live in this woodland ? " inquired 
Tan. 

" In the woods? Not I ! For many sum- 
mers I have lived at the farmhouse." 

Was this another of man's dependents? 
Could it be that man had tamed this creature 
and set him to work, even as he had the horse 
and the cow, the sheep and the goat, the fowls 
and even the silkworm? They wondered 
what kind of work he could do. 

" What do they call you ? " was Tan's next 
query. " We are Tan and Teckle, the field- 
mice." 

" I call myself the Scourge of Man, but man 
calls me the rat." 

" Do you, then, work for man ? " 

" You're an odd creature," said the rat. 
" First you want to know if I live in the 
woods like a rabbit or a squirrel ; now you 
want to know if I work for man. 

" I'll have you know, little chap, that I 
make man work for me. I work for nobody 



THE SCOURGE OF MAN 175 

but myself, and the only work I do is of my 
own choosing. Work for man I I'll tell you 
some of the work I've done for man in the 
summers and winters I have lived in the 
house with him. 

" I have gnawed holes in the walls and the 
floors of his house, and have taken his choic- 
est food — sweets, meats, bread, nuts, cheese, 
milk, butter — everything that he had gath- 
ered for himself. 

" I have gone into the nests of his fowls, 
and carried off the eggs they had laid for him. 
And I have eaten the ducklings and little 
chickens, and his rabbits too. 

" I have gone into his barns and cut holes 
in his granary, and have eaten of his wheat 
and oats and corn, I have bitten his choicest 
apples, and have feasted off his vegetables. 

" I have eaten what I wanted, wasted what 
I chose, and scattered filth over the remain- 
der. That is how I have worked for man." 

" I think that is a shame ! I wonder that 
man has not long ago driven you out or killed 
you." 



176 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

Tan was not as gentle as his wont, for 
though he disliked man, and had the 
loathing of a wild creature for those who 
work for man and depend on him for a 
living, yet he thought the rat had used man 
badly. 

"So does man wonder that he has not 
killed me or driven me away," rejoined the 
rat saucily. " He has been trying to do both 
ever since the first rat came to live with him. 
Man is very wise in some ways, and very 
stupid in others. He thought to kill me by 
putting out traps. He did catch a few young 
and foolish rats, but the others of us learned 
about traps. I know a trap when I see it or 
smell it ; and I know by instinct where it is 
when I can neither see nor smell it. He can- 
not catch me. 

" Also he has tried to feed me on the food 
that kills. I tasted it once, but I knew 
enough not to eat of it. The taste made me 
ill, and I never touched it again. Some 
young rats were hungr}' and foolish, and ate 
of the food that kills. They died, but the 






THE SCOURGE OF MAN 177 

world is always full of the young and foolish, 
and they were never missed. 

" His dogs have often tried to catch me. 
Cats, too, he keeps about him. Sometimes 
they get the young and foolish, but not the 
old and wise. 

" And in return for all this, what have I 
done for man? I have lived with him in his 
own house despite him. I have torn up his 
garments to make a nest for myself. I have 
run about between the walls of his house and 
disturbed his sleep. I have taken the food 
he meant for himself, and have soiled what I 
did not eat so that he could not use it. And 
at the moment when he was threatening to 
kill every rat in his house, my mate brought 
forth ten little ones under the floor beneath 
his bed. Yes, and they all lived to be grown, 
and went to make nests of their own. 

" And you ask me if I work for man ! " 

" Why are you travelling?" asked Teckle. 

" Not because of anything man has done, 
you may be sure. I am going away for a 
time because of an enemy that has come to 



178 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

the barn. For days a weasel has been there, 
and he is killing my people. I am a fighter, 
but I know he can kill me, so I am going 
away until he is killed. Then I will return. " 

"Do you think he will be killed? Who 
will do it?" 

" The farmer, of course. Doesn't he kill 
every creature that does good for him? Be- 
cause the weasel sometimes eats chickens, it 
will not be many days until the farmer will 
kill the weasel. But until then I choose to 
live at some other farmhouse, where there is 
no weasel." 

" Why not live in the woodland and be 
independent ? " 

" I prefer to live in man's house and make 
him work for me. So I will rest here until it 
is dark, go on to some other man's house, and 
live there for a time." 

The bat was hanging in the upper part of 
the stump asleep while all this talk was going 
on, but when it was dusk, and he crept out of 
the stump to fly away, Tan and Teckle told 
him of the strange visitor. The bat told them 



THE SCOURGE OF MAN 179 

that the rat had rightly named himself the 
Scourge of Man, for not only is all that he 
said true, but much more besides. 

For the rat is scattered all over the world, 
wherever civilized man lives. He eats con- 
stantly, and he eats almost everything. He 
eats even his own little ones, or his brothers, 
if he is very hungry and there is nothing else 
to be had. A few times rats have been known 
to combine in great numbers and kill and eat 
a man, for they are very strong and fierce, and 
fight bravely when there is need. It has 
often happened that little children have been 
attacked and killed. 

The rat is very brave and very difficult to 
kill. He is armed with four very long teeth 
in front — two above and two below, as strong 
and as sharp as little chisels. With these he 
can quickly cut through any wooden wall or 
door or floor, and can even make a hole 
through brick. These teeth are dangerous 
weapons, and it is a brave cat which will 
attack a full-grown rat. Even a dog, unless 
he be very large or very well trained, is 



180 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

usually beaten when he tries to overcome an 
old rat. 

If there were but a few rats, even with their 
aggressive ways they might be patiently en- 
dured. But a single pair will bring forth in 
a year four or five litters, each numbering 
from four or five to ten or even twelve. And 
a female rat only four months old will mate 
and bring forth young, so that before the end 
of the year the first and second litters would 
be bringing up families of their own. With 
this in mind it will be seen that in a year a 
single pair of rats might increase to a hun- 
dred, or in exceptional circumstances, to al- 
most twice that number. 

Of course this would be unusual, for it 
would mean that almost every young rat 
should escape all its enemies, and live to be 
grown and bring forth young as early as pos- 
sible. In real life cats and dogs, men and 
boys, owls and hawks, weasels and snakes, 
combine to keep down their numbers much 
below this standard. But even with all these 
enemies, rats multiply so fast and thrive so 



THE SCOURGE OF MAN 181 

well that man pays a fearful toll each year — 
enough wasted food to feed all the hungry of 
the world. 

And if only this were the worst ! But it is 
not. In recent years it has been discovered 
that the rat is the chief means of carrying 
from one part of the country to another — 
and even from one country to another — one 
of the most terrible of human diseases. Just 
as the mosquito bites a man ill of yellow 
fever, and carries it to a man who otherwise 
never would take the disease, and gives it to 
him by biting him, just so the rat carries the 
dreaded Asiatic cholera from man to man. 

But with this difference : The rat does not 
actually bite the man to give him the disease, 
but he carries it to him in a peculiar manner. 
The rat is always infested with fleas. These 
fleas sometimes leave the rat and bite people ; 
and just as often they leave people and live on 
rats. When a flea has bitten a man who has 
Asiatic cholera, and afterwards bites a rat, he 
gives the disease to the rat. And thereafter 
every flea which bites the sick rat and then 



182 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

bites a man, woman or child, he gives to each 
one of his victims the terrible cholera. 

This explains what all the doctors and wise 
men for hundreds of years were not able to 
understand — -just how the cholera travels 
across a country, and is given to persons who 
have not been near any one suffering with the 
disease. The rats and the fleas carry it. And 
as rats are great travellers, it follows that they 
take the scourge from one land to another on 
ships and railway trains. A few years ago 
when thousands of Chinese were dying daily 
of the plague, rats brought the disease over 
the ocean in ships, and American cities along 
the Pacific coast had a difficult task to keep 
it from spreading. A great war was waged 
against the rats, and hundreds of thousands 
were killed. But the fleas carried the cholera 
to the squirrels, and they, too, were slain by 
thousands before the cities felt safe. 

It is in this sense, much more than because 
he eats and destroys so much food, that the 
rat is really the Scourge of Man, as he boasted. 

Tan and Teckle slept unmolested in their 



THE SCOURGE OF MAN 183 

own nest the rest of that afternoon, while the 
rat lay and rested, and perhaps slept, on the 
floor of their hollow stump. They were a 
trifle afraid to stir about, even when evening 
came, until they heard him creeping out of 
the stump. Then they climbed up to watch 
him go. 

The rat crept to the end of the hollow root 
that formed a doorway to the old stump, and 
peered out. He saw nothing to alarm him. 
If he could only have known that what 
seemed an old dead snag of a tree was partly 
a snag and partly something else ! But he 
did not know. So he started bravely across 
the woodland. Tan and Teckle ran out to the 
doorway to watch him out of sight. 

He had made but a few leaps across the 
grass when what seemed a part of the old 
dead snag dropped noiselessly as a feather — 
but oh, so swiftly ! The rat did not see it un- 
til it was very near him. He sprang aside, 
threw up his head and bared those terrible 
teeth, but he was no match for this foe. A 
pair of immense brown wings spread over 



184 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

him and hid him from sight of the watchers, 
an enormous pair of talons seized him, the 
weight of a heavy body crushed him against 
the ground and forced the long claws deep 
into his body. He gave one loud shriek of 
defiance and pain, and was still, and as the 
great owl flapped his silent brown wings 
across the woodland, the rat hung soft and 
limp beneath him. 

" And to-morrow the farmer would kill the 
owl if he could, just because he sometimes 
takes a turkey," mused Tan. 








THE WALKING STONE *3Sfei 

IT looked like a weather-worn, rounded 
stone about the size of a butter dish, 
covered with dust and dirt, lying in the 
grass. In colour it was a dusty brown, 
blotched here and there with dull orange 
yellow, as if lichen had tried to grow there, 
but found the soil too poor, and, dying, had 
turned yellow. And, like a stone that has 
been used to mark a boundary, it had carved 
on it some letters and figures. 

But can a stone move? Surely this object 
did. True, it lay on a hillside, and you might 
have thought that something had started it 
to rolling. But the hillside was not steep. 
More than that, the stone did not roll — it 

moved along on the same side on which it 

185 



186 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

lay, just as if it were dragged along with a 
string. The meadow lark that had alighted 
close beside it, and was wagging his tail before 
beginning a song, looked again to be sure that 
his eyes had not deceived him, and with a 
terrified " Sprake ! Sprake ! " fled wildly to 
the other side of the meadow. Stone or not, 
it certainly moved. 

If you had been there to watch, and had 
looked on from a little distance, quietly and 
without motion, you might have seen a queer 
little head, with the keenest of red eyes, 
watching from under the front edge of this 
moving object. And down in the grass be- 
neath you might have had a glimpse of four 
feet plodding steadily but warily along. 

But if you went too near, or made a move- 
ment that was noticed by those fiery little red 
eyes, you would have seen no more head, no 
more feet, and there would have been no more 
walking for a while. You might have heard 
a hiss, like that of a snake or a goose, but 
head and feet would have disappeared like 
magic, and if you picked up the strange ob- 






THE WALKING STONE 187 

ject it would still have looked very like a 
rounded, flattened stone. 

Nothing happened to alarm the little pil- 
grim, and he kept steadily on down the hill 
as if he had something definite to do. Down 
the dry and dusty hillside, into the gloom and 
cool of the woodland he travelled at the same 
slow, steady pace, turning neither to right nor 
left. And presently he drew near to the old 
hollow oak stump in which dwelt Tan and 
Teckle. Of course they saw him. Few things 
passed that way that they w T ere not aware of. 
But they watched in silent wonder, for this 
was another new neighbour. 

First of all they wondered whether he were 
a meat eater. They soon found that he ate 
insects at least, for they plainly saw him dart 
forth his head and long, slender neck, and 
seize a slug that was crawling on the grass. 
And presently they saw him eating a green 
leaf. An earthworm that had crawled from 
its burrow was snatched up, too, and swal- 
lowed. 

Dusk fell as they watched, and the bat 



188 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

came scrambling out of the stump for his 
nightly flight. 

" Box turtle," he said, shortly, when they 
pointed out the stranger. " No, he won't try 
to hurt you." 

The bat seemed in an ill temper that even- 
ing, and flapped away without explaining any 
further. But they were to learn more, merely 
by keeping quiet and watching, which they 
had found a very good way to learn. 

With the twilight came also Striped Face, 
the raccoon that had run away from the three 
boys of the Bradley farm, and now lived in 
the hollow box elder tree near by. When the 
sun went down he climbed up out of the hole 
where he had slept all day, and sat for a 
while in the fork of the tree, watching and 
listening. He spied the queer object coming 
across the woodland, and to him, also, it 
looked like a stone. Even if he had not been 
hungry Striped Face would have been curious 
to know what it was. But he was both hun- 
gry and curious, so he made haste to scramble 
down the tree. He crept quietly upon the 



THE WALKING STONE 189 

little stranger, and was quite near before he 
was seen. He made a quick rush to seize his 
prey, expecting that this strange animal would 
either fight or run. 

Greatly to his surprise, it did neither. As 
he seized it he heard a defiant hiss, but he 
was not afraid. He had killed more than 
one goose, and they always hissed when 
alarmed. Striped Face was still more sur- 
prised that his teeth did not sink into soft 
flesh as he had expected. They felt as if he 
had really seized a stone instead of some ani- 
mal fit to eat. He gave it one good, hard 
bite, and laid it down on the grass to have a 
good look at it. 

The turtle lay as if dead. Striped Face 
looked at it in astonishment. He had never 
known anything like this. Well, if its back 
were hard, perhaps its head, or at any rate its 
legs, might be good eating. And it had both, 
for he had seen them. But where were they ? 
Not a trace of head, or leg, or even tail could 
he find. They had disappeared entirely. 
All he could see was a rounded, flattened ob- 



190 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

ject, which looked like a stone, and which 
might as well have been a stone for all he 
could get to eat from it. 

Cautiously Striped Face poked one paw 
under the edge of the turtle's shell and with 
a sudden flip turned him on his back and 
seized him with his teeth again. He had no 
better success than before. The turtle was 
flattened on the under side, and the light 
brown colour there was irregularly blotched 
with pale yellow as if it had lain on the 
grass in one spot for a long time, and had 
taken part of its colour from the bleached 
grass. But it was just as hard beneath as 
above, and Striped Face's teeth made no 
more impression. 

The raccoon was sorely puzzled. He laid 
the turtle down and walked around it at a 
little distance, watching it narrowly. Then 
he went close and poked it gently with one 
paw. Nothing happened. He drew nearer 
and poked it about with both paws. He 
pushed, and poked, and pried, and scratched, 
and turned it over and over and around and 



THE WALKING STONE 191 

around, but he never could find the legs and 
head which he knew had been there. 

Then a bright idea occurred to Striped Face. 
He would gnaw this thing open. He took it 
up in his fore paws just as a child would a 
piece of bread and butter, and began to work 
on the edge of it with his keen teeth. He 
succeeded in making some scratches on the 
tough shell, but that was all. He worked 
hard, for he knew by the smell, and by 
having seen it walk, that there was some 
living animal inside, and who knew but it 
was as good to eat as chicken, or goose ? 

His work was all in vain. He was making 
no impression on the hard shell, and he knew 
it. He laid the turtle down in the grass 
where he had found it, and walked away very 
much disgusted. He went straight to the 
creek and began searching in the grass along 
the bank for frogs. 

The box turtle had used its one and only 
method of defense — it had drawn itself en- 
tirely inside the shell and closed both doors. 
The mud turtle and many of his cousins have 



192 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

shells on the backs and breasts, but can only 
draw their head, legs and tail under the 
upper shell and trust to luck to escape. But 
the box turtle has his under shell hinged in 
the middle, so that both ends can be pulled 
up so tightly against the upper shell that a 
pin can scarcely be poked between them. 
And he is very strong and can hold the doors 
shut against great force. Once he closes these 
doors he is safe against any ordinary danger. 
Only a very large and strong animal, or a 
man or boy with an axe or some such 
weapon, can break in and get him. 

For an hour or more after Striped Face had 
gone the turtle lay in the grass motionless. 
Time has no great value to a turtle, and he is 
very patient. He lives to a great age — some 
say fifty years or more — and he seldom has 
need to hurry. So, though he was on his 
way to dinner, the turtle wanted to be very 
sure it was safe before he made another move. 
After a long, long time the front door of his 
shell opened just a tiny bit. Nothing hap- 
pened. So slowly that if you had been 



THE WALKING STONE 193 

watching you could not have seen it move, 
the shell opened wider. Then from among 
the folds of tough and wrinkled skin a sharp 
little snout was poked into view, with a pair 
of tiny nostrils at the tip, and the keen, fiery 
little red eyes close behind them. The 
turtle was afraid that Striped Face might be 
waiting near by, ready to seize him again. 
But neither nose nor eyes gave him warning 
of a foe. Then, slowly and cautiously, four 
short legs and a ridiculous little tail came 
into view, and the turtle resumed his inter- 
rupted journey. 

Oh, yes, he knew perfectly well where he was 
going. He had been there before. There was 
a certain corn field not far away, and when 
the three boys of the Bradley farm had 
planted the corn there in the spring, they had 
for their own enjoyment planted a number of 
melon seeds. Despite the plowing the vines 
grew, and a number of melons ripened in the 
late summer. The boys ate a few, but for the 
most part they let them lie on the ground 
and the little wild people got them. 



194 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

— ^^— — — —— — ^ — — Wi^B^^^^^— MIMM II I 

That is where the turtle was bound. He 
made his way, without further adventure, to 
the field, and gorged himself on the sweet 
little canteloupes and muskmelons. He took 
all the time he needed, for time mattered 
nothing to him. Little he cared where he 
slept. So it was that when morning came he 
was just starting back to the dry meadowland, 
and the three boys, abroad early again, met 
him on the way. 

" Oh, look ! Another box turtle ! " ex- 
claimed one. 

They ran to seize him. He gave a most 
venomous hiss, but they were not afraid — 
it was only the great snapping turtle that 
could make them careful. They picked him 
up fearlessly. 

" What's that on his back ? " cried one. 
" Letters, sure as anything ! Read 'em." 

The letters and figures were carefulty spelled 
out. 

" Some fellow's initials — I wonder whose. 
And the date — why he's more'n twenty years 
old. That was cut there twenty years ago, 



THE WALKING STONE 195 

an' no telling how old he was then. Let's 
give him a new date." 

So with a pocket knife a new date and 
three new sets of initials were carved on the 
turtle's back. 

11 Something's been after him," said a boy, 
looking closely at the scratches on the edge of 
the shell. " Look here at the marks of teeth. 
Dog, I s'pose, or maybe a 'coon or a fox." 

Little did they think that Striped Face had 
made those marks, and that he was that 
moment lying within a very little distance of 
them, hearing all they said. 

When they had finished carving their 
initials on his back, the boys put the turtle 
down again. They knew better than to try 
to wait until he resumed his journey — they 
had done that before, and knew how long it 
took. So they put him down and went their 
way. 

When he was perfectly sure that the boys 
had gone the turtle put forth his head and 
feet, and went on his way to the upland 
meadow. There, in the dry, gravelly soil, he 



196 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

resumed the digging of a burrow which he 
had begun many days before, and meant to 
have completed before cold weather came on. 
For there, many feet below the depth to which 
the ground could freeze, he meant to spend 
the winter, sound asleep. 




si 



ft 



Wmm 

vim 



ANOTHER KILLER 

HIS is the story of 

how the musk rat 

came to leave the 

burrow where he had lived so happily all 

summer long. As you may remember, this 

burrow ran from the edge of the water in 

Pleasant Run brook, far back under the steep 

bank, and ended directly beneath the great, 

hollow, oak stump in which lived Tan and 

Teckle, the little field-mice. The burrow had 

two entrances : one beside the brook, where 

the muskrat could slip directly into the water, 

and when he came home could step from the 

water directly into the burrow. Indeed, when 

197 



198 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

the brook carried a little more water than 
usual the entrance was under water, and to his 
great delight the muskrat could dive under 
the surface and come up inside his own tunnel. 

The other entrance was through the hollow 
stump. The tap root — the big, central root 
that goes straight down — was hollow its entire 
length. And Tan and Teckle and the musk- 
rat, among them, had gnawed a hole in the 
tap root so that they could pass freely back 
and forth, though they did not often use it 
as a door. The muskrat, especially, seldom 
passed through the stump, preferring to glide 
from his front door into the water, and not 
show himself on the land at all. But it was 
sometimes very convenient to have another 
way in and out, as you shall presently see. 

One night Tan and Teckle were outside the 
stump, sitting on the bank of the brook, nib- 
bling at grass roots, and enjoying the warm 
autumn air, always keeping a sharp lookout 
for enemies. 

" Here comes the muskrat," said Tan, as a 
small, black head came into view around the 




FAIRLY HURLED HIMSELF INTO THE WATER 



ANOTHER KILLER 199 

bend up stream, a tiny ripple spreading away 
from each side. " I thought he was already 
inside. How happy he must be. He gets 
nearly all his food in the water, seldom has to 
show himself on land, and seems to have no 
enemy but the owl." 

" He is quieter than usual," observed 
Teckle. " I believe he is not coming in at all 
— yes, there he is turning to the bank." 

At first the small, black head had seemed 
about to keep on down the stream, but just as 
it got abreast the muskrat's tunnel it paused, 
turned, and made abruptly for the mouth of 
the tunnel. The next moment the muskrat 
came tearing out of the stump at top speed, 
ran to the edge of the bank, and fairly hurled 
himself over into the water with a loud 
splash. 

" Run, Little Brother, while you can ! " he 
exclaimed as he went over. 

If Tan and Teckle had watched him they 
would have seen that the muskrat did not 
come to the surface until he had swam a long 
way. Then he merely poked his nose up 



200 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

very quietly under a tuft of grass at the edge 
of the bank, took a long breath, dived again 
and swam under water as far as he could. 
He seemed terribly frightened. 

But Tan and Teckle did not waste time 
watching what the muskrat did. There was a 
hollow limb on the ground near by, in which 
they had more than once taken refuge in time 
of sudden danger, and into it they scrambled 
when the muskrat gave warning. The hollow 
was very long and narrow, and they crept 
into it as far as they could, so that none but a 
very small creature could get near them. 
Safe in there they could not see what hap- 
pened outside, but it was this : 

Out from the hollow stump, following the 
trail of the muskrat, came a long, slender, 
almost serpent-like creature. His body was 
very long and willowy, and his legs very short 
so that he ran very near the ground. His 
head was round and quite small, with beady, 
black eyes, very short ears, and a patch of 
pure white at his throat. Otherwise he was 
dark brown — almost black, and seemed en- 



ANOTHER KILLER 201 

tirely black when he was wet. He did not 
seem to be running very fast, but there was a 
cat-like quickness and ease and grace to all 
his movements that made them seem much 
slower than they really were. 

It was a mink, first cousin to the weasel, 
but much larger, stronger, quite as active and 
daring, and fully as blood-thirsty. His feet 
are partly webbed, and he swims as well as the 
muskrat. The mink had been swimming 
down the brook looking for a duck, a fish, 
a frog, or indeed almost anything he could 
kill, when he saw the muskrat at the door of 
his burrow. It was the mink, and not the 
muskrat, that Tan and Teckle had seen com- 
ing down the stream. 

When he turned in towards the mouth of 
the burrow, the mink meant to follow the 
muskrat inside, and catch and eat him right 
there. The mink is so slender that he can 
follow a muskrat or a rabbit into any hole or 
burrow. If he had known that there was 
another way out, he would have run faster, 
and caught the muskrat before he could climb 



202 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

out through the stump. But the mink 
thought he had plenty of time ; he had never 
before seen a muskrat burrow with two en- 
trances. 

When the mink had followed the muskrat 
through the stump and to the bank of the 
creek, he knew that he had lost his prey, and 
did not waste time just then trying to find 
him. He knew that the frightened creature 
was far away and securely hidden by that 
time, and water leaves no trail. So he turned 
his attention to other things. He had caught 
the scent of field-mice, and with his keen 
nose to the ground, he followed their trail to 
the hollow limb. Tan and Teckle, trembling 
inside, heard him sniff at the hole, and 
scratch a little at the limb to see whether it 
were soft enough to be easily torn open. But 
the wood was quite solid, so he turned away 
and did not try to get at them. They caught 
the strong odour of the mink, which is a little 
like that of the skunk but not so offensive; 
and they scented his breath, plainly that of a 
meat eater. Then he was gone. 



ANOTHER KILLER 203 

The mink did not return at once to the 
water. He walked stealthily down the bank 
of the stream to where it flows into Nineveh, 
the large creek. On the way he found a 
crawfish outside its mud chimney, and ate it. 
A little farther along he surprised a young 
frog at his singing, and caught and ate him. 

When the mink reached Nineveh creek he 
slid without a sound or a ripple into the 
water, and swam away so slowly and quietly 
that you would have thought the little, round, 
black head a bit of wood floating on the 
stream. But when a bass arose to the surface 
to catch a grasshopper that had fallen in, and 
slapped the surface with his tail and started 
back to his deep pool again, he found too late 
that it was no floating stick that he had seen. 
For the mink curved his long neck, dived 
with the speed and grace of an otter, and in 
another instant the fish was in the grasp 
of his long, keen teeth. 

The bass was large and strong, but the mink 
had cleverly caught him just back of the head, 
so that his teeth tore cruelly through the 



204 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

tender gills, staining the water a deeper col- 
our in the moonlight. The straggle was 
quickly over, and the mink crouched at the 
edge of the water and ate a fish dinner. 

There was a rustling among the dry leaves 
at the top of the bank, and a woods rabbit 
looked inquiringly over. He took just one 
look, and with eyes almost popping from his 
head with terror he went tearing through the 
woods as if the red fox were after him again. 
He knew the mink. And he knew that the 
mink could follow him into any hole or 
burrow he might choose, and drag him forth. 
The only way he could escape the mink was 
to run fast and far, and that he did with all 
his might. 

When he had eaten the fish, or as much of 
it as he wanted, the mink left the creek and 
followed a fence row towards the farmhouse. 
Just because he could, he caught a sleeping 
sparrow in the grass and ate him. By this 
time he had eaten as much as he wanted him- 
self, but he would still kill for the love of kill- 
ing, and for the taste of the warm, red blood. 



ANOTHER KILLER 205 

Besides, he had others to think of. In a 
little den under a shelf of slate rock on the 
bank of Pleasant Run, far above where Tan 
and Teckle lived, were his mate and seven 
young. To be sure, the young minks were 
by now almost as large as their mother, but 
they still liked to have food brought to them. 
And that is what the mink had in mind. 

He easily made his way into the poultry 
house — this was by no means his first visit. 
He found some half-grown chickens asleep on 
the sloping roost, and very quietly crept up 
beside them. He seized one by the head, and 
with a single snap of his sharp teeth pierced 
the poor thing's brain. It struggled a little, 
but not enough to alarm the others and set 
them to flapping and squalling, and so bring 
the farmer and the dogs. The mink crouched 
on the ground and drank the blood, and then 
started to drag the fowl to his den. It was 
no easy task, but he did it. He left so plain 
a trail that it is a wonder that the dogs did 
not follow it up when morning came, but for 
some reason they did not. It was almost sun- 



206 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

rise when he finally reached the den under 
the shelf of rock, and while the seven young 
ones were tearing the fowl in pieces, the old 
mink crept into a dark corner and went to 
sleep for the day. 

But the muskrat — what of him ? When he 
made his frantic plunge from the top of the 
bank into the brook, he made his way as 
rapidly as he could a long distance down 
stream, swimming under water and coming to 
the surface only to get breath and dive again. 
He took his frantic course to where lay a large 
hollow log with one end deep under the water. 
Here he dived and came up inside the log, 
and lay there in the water with just the tip of 
his nose out, waiting until the mink should 
give up the hunt for him and go away. 

When the muskrat finally did find courage 
to return home, he was so afraid that the mink 
would come back and catch him as he slept, 
that he left that very night and chose another 
nest. Away up Nineveh creek, where a great' 
sycamore tree had fallen into the water, a pile 
of driftwood had gathered. Here the muskrat 



ANOTHER KILLER 207 

made his way, and in the shelter of the great 
pile of uprooted trees, broken branches, fence 
rails, straw and weeds and corn-stalks, he dug 
himself a fresh burrow in the bank. It was 
not until another year, after the bat had told 
him of the tragic fate that befell the mink in 
the winter, that the muskrat dared move 
back to the old stump and live with Tan and 
Teckle. 

As for the little field-mice, they felt that 
they were as safe there as they could hope to 
be anywhere. True, the mink would eat a 
mouse as readily as he would a fish or a 
muskrat or a chicken, but they could always 
hear him coming, they thought, and could 
take refuge in a hollow root where he could 
not get at them. So they continued to live in 
the old stump ; and whether the mink did not 
know that they lived there, or whether he 
forgot about them, or whether he found so 
much to eat other-where that he did not care 
to trouble them, he never came to the old 
stump again. 




A NEW WAY TO FLY 

FROST had come to the Bradley farm. 
For several nights the sky had 
been clear and the air crispy cold, and 
the morning sun found a thick coat of white 
on fences, logs, stones, grass and wayside 
weeds. And when the sun had shone on the 
green things and melted the frost away, they 
showed strangely black and wilted, as if they 
had been choked. 

The nuts had begun to tumble down in 
earnest. Acorns, beechnuts, butternuts, wal- 
nuts, and chinquapins in the deep woods, and 
hazelnuts in the underbrush, came popping 

from their burrs and rattling down among the 

208 



A NEW WAY TO FLY 209 

leaves. And the pawpaws and wild persim- 
mons, instead of hanging on tightly to their 
twigs as they had been doing, were dropping 
into the grass of their own accord, no longer 
waiting for hungry opossum or impatient boy 
to pull them loose. 

The woodland fairly flamed under the magic 
touch of autumn. Not anywhere else in the 
world are there such scarlets and crimsons as 
come into the leaf of the sugar maple when 
the frost touches it. And all the yellows 
of all the lemons and oranges in the world 
are in the showers of leaves from the blue ash 
and the great black walnut trees. The oaks 
flaunt their maroons and purples, the beeches 
their silver grays, and each tree of all the 
forest lights its fires of colour, all the way from 
fading green to the most vivid reds and 
yellows. 

When the frosts came, the sky itself took on 
a softer hue. Its blue was much less vivid, 
and it seemed much less hard and far away. 
Everything was seen through a haze, like a 
very sheer, soft veil, that took away all the 



210 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

hard lines and angles, and when one looked 
at woods and field and river, it was like re- 
calling a dream-landscape, but dimly remem- 
bered. 

Many things puzzled Tan and Teckle, the 
little field-mice, and none more than the 
myriads of fine, silvery lines that stretched 
everywhere, all over the land. From every 
tree, and bush, and weed clump, from every 
corn-stalk and fence stake, seemingly from 
each leaf and grass blade in all the woodland, 
these lines were drawn. It was as if each leaf 
and blade of grass were moored fast to the 
others so that none might get away. They 
saw these lines most plainly in the early 
morning, but they were there all day, for 
when the field-mice ventured into the grass 
they could still see the tiny threads stretched 
about. 

" Spiders, of course," replied the bat shortly 
when they asked him. " Some of them are 
young ones, practicing spinning. Others are 
grown ones, getting ready to fly." 

" Flying spiders — this is something new," 



A NEW WAY TO FLY 211 

thought the field-mice. But they got little 
more out of the bat when they asked him to 
explain. The chill of approaching winter 
was in his bones, and made him nervous and 
irritable, and he could think of little else 
than the time when he must hang himself up 
for the winter's sleep. 

But they found out. Always, if nobody 
cared to tell them, the little field-mice 
watched until they learned things for them- 
selves. On the way home from the corn field 
one morning, just when the sun was rising 
and lighting up the lines of web so that they 
glistened like silver wires, they saw a queer 
little spider going through what seemed to 
them a very queer performance. He seemed 
to be actually wasting his web. He was 
standing on the top of a broken ragweed, his 
head bent down close to the weed and his ab- 
domen tilted up into the air as high as he 
could reach. From his spinnerets floated 
away towards the sun a thread of web so long 
and so fine and so wavy in the light breeze 
that they could not see the end of it. If they 



212 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

had known the story of Jack and his bean 
stalk they might have likened this thread to 
the magic growth. 

It was an odd-looking little spider that 
perched on the weed. They had often seen 
his kind spinning a tiny web among the short 
grass and fallen leaves of the woodland, where 
he lived on tiny insects. He was as smooth 
and shiny as a beetle. The front half of his 
body was a beautiful orange colour, as if the 
frost had touched him as well as the leaves. 
And Tan thought that the colour must have 
run a little, for his legs also were partly 
orange tinted. He had a very curious bump 
on the top of his head which Tan had never 
seen on any other kind of spider. Tan won- 
dered whether he had been hit on the head, 
or perhaps stung by a bee, and swelled up to 
that odd shape. 

"What kind of web, Little Brother?" 
asked Tan. 

The little spider turned and stared at them 
to be sure that he was not in danger of being 
eaten. But though he had eight eyes, he 



A NEW WAY TO FLY 213 

could see nothing clearly unless it were quite 
near him, and he could not tell who had 
spoken. 

" Who are you ? " he demanded shortly. 

" Only Tan, the field-mouse. I never saw 
a web like this one." 

" Oh, I'm not laying a snare ; I am getting 
ready to fly." 

So, then, this was a flying spider. The bat 
had not deceived them — there really are 
spiders that fly, and perhaps they might be 
about to witness that feat. So they remained 
and watched. What they saw had little the 
appearance of anything about to fly — a very 
small spider, standing in a comical position, 
with his head down and his abdomen in the 
air, and a thread of web stretching away from 
him. They saw no wings, nor anything that 
looked like wings — not even flaps of skin such 
as the flying squirrel uses. 

" Are you called the Flying Spider, then ? " 
asked Teckle. 

" No. My name is Erigone." 

" Is it you who spins all these lines from 



214 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

tree to tree, and all across the grass and 
weeds?" 

" No, not all. I spin some, and my broth- 
ers and sisters and cousins spin some. But a 
great deal of the lines you see were spun by 
the youngsters of a great many kinds of 
spiders. When they get old enough to find 
out that they can spin, they take great de^ 
light in throwing out their threads into the 
wind, and letting them drift about." 

" But how do they manage to stretch them 
so tightly from one tree top to another, away 
up in the air ? There must be a great deal 
more hard work than sport about that." 

" They don't do the stretching. Catch 
them climbing trees to fasten their lines ! 
Not they. All they do is to cast their webs 
forth into the air. It is the wind that carries 
them about and stretches them. Those lazy 
young ones do not even spin snares until they 
get hungry." 

" There must be a great many spiders, to 
spin so many lines." 

" Count them yourself — I can't. You re- 



A NEW WAY TO FLY 215 

member how thick the spiders are all over 
the ground, the grass and the trees, don't 
you ? Well, each mother spider lays so many 
eggs that I don't know how to tell you the 
number. More than the number of all your 
claws many times over. Two or three or four 
times a summer she lays eggs and spins a sort 
of sack or cocoon for them, and keeps them 
on her back, or between her feet, or in her 
nest, or fastens them to the grass, according 
to her family custom. And when all these 
youngsters get big enough to begin to spin, 
you can see that they turn out a great deal of 
web. That is how the whole land is filled 
with lines this morning." 

Several times while he was talking the 
spider paused, ceased to spin out more web, 
and grasped the top of the weed firmly with 
all eight of his feet. Presently he would re- 
lax his hold, and go on talking and spinning. 

" I'm going very soon, Little Brother," he 
said, after one very long pause during which 
he seemed to have great trouble to keep his 
footing, though Tan and Teckle did not then 



216 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

know what was the trouble. " The next 
breath of breeze will surely bear me away. I 
have out now more line than I can manage." 

Even then Tan and Teckle did not fully 
understand what he meant, so they watched 
in silence. The little spider went on spin- 
ning out his web, and presently, as the sun 
rose higher, there came a stronger breath of 
the breeze from the west. In spite of his try- 
ing to cling fast to the weed, the spider was 
torn away and was borne aloft by the web he 
had spun. Now they understood at last what 
he had meant when he said that he would 
soon be gone, and they understood how the 
spider flies. 

At first the little fellow hung head down- 
ward, in what the field-mice thought must 
be a very uncomfortable position, though he 
probably minded it not at all. But presently 
he reached up with a long leg, caught the web 
with one foot, and pulled himself up. If he 
wanted to, he could of course spin for himself 
a tiny hammock, but very likely he was per- 
fectly comfortable just hanging to the thread. 



A NEW WAY TO FLY 217 

When he had pulled himself upright, the 
little aeronaut waved a leg at the field-mice, 
and called out some word of farewell, but he 
was already so high in the air that they could 
not make out what he said. They watched 
him as far as they could see him, floating up, 
and up, and up, right into the eye of the sun, 
swayed about as the breeze blew, and riding 
safely and securely across the great corn field. 

Then he was gone, and Tan and Teckle be- 
thought themselves that it was broad day, 
and they ought to be safe in the stump. 
And, as they scampered home, they said to 
each other, " So that's the way the spider 
manages to fly, is it ? " At another time the}^ 
learned that there is a spider which comes 
nearer to real flight than the one they had 
just seen. This spider has a membrane 
stretched along his sides, which he uses very 
much as a flying squirrel uses the flaps of 
skin stretched between his fore legs and hind 
legs. When this spider leaps through the air 
after his prey he can actually sail for some 
distance. 



218 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

Bat the field-mice tried to fancy what it 
must be like to go sailing across the fields as 
their little friend had just done, riding high 
and higher up into the soft sky and among 
the feathery clouds. The spider is so light 
that if he should fall he would not be hurt ; 
and if he should drop into a river he can run 
on the water ; and no matter where he alights 
he can spin a snare and catch insects. It 
must be great sport for a spider, they thought. 

But for them, the more they thought of it, 
the better content they were to go on living 
in the old hollow oak stump, among the 
friends they had found in the woodland. 
Their home was safe, they knew, and their 
neighbours kind, and they would not like to 
move to another place, whether by walking or 
by flying. 




El 



SNAKE OR FISH? 



NO eye but that of an owl, or a mink, 
or a cat, or some other creature de- 
signed especially to see in the dark- 
est night, could have spied him as he slid 
back and forth through the deep pool in 
Pleasant Run brook. If you had been there, 
and if your eyes had been enough like the 
owl's to enable you to see, at the very first 
glance you would have said, " a snake." 

For this strange creature had almost exactly 
the form and movements of a snake. It was 
more than two feet long, and not larger than 
a child's wrist. There were the pointed head, 
the bead}?- eyes, the writhing grace of a 

snake in its speedy movements through 

219 



220 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

the water, and not a sign of a leg or foot or 
flipper. 

And when a stupid little catfish came swim- 
ming by, intent only on finding worms that 
had been washed into the pool by a shower 
just passed, the odd creature caught him ex- 
actly as a snake would have done — gave a 
quick, darting movement of the head, and 
seized the unlucky fish with his strong teeth, 
and, after a short struggle, swallowed him 
whole. 

Yet the stranger was unlike a snake in that 
he never once came to the surface to breathe, 
as a snake must do. Nor did he have nostrils 
at the tip of his pointed muzzle as a snake 
has, but little slits on each side, just behind 
the head. And when presently the mink 
came softly paddling into the pool looking for 
crawfish, or minnows, or whatever he could 
find to eat, the odd stranger darted with great 
speed to the bottom of the pool and literally 
dived head first into the soft mud and dis- 
appeared. 

What was it, then, that looked, moved, and 



SNAKE OR FISH? 221 

acted so much like a snake, yet lived under 
the water all the time, and breathed water 
through slits in his neck instead of air through 
nostrils? Tan wondered much about it. He 
was afraid, and dared not move from the 
mouth of the muskrat's tunnel where he sat 
crouched behind a tuft of grass, lest this 
active stranger should dart from the ooze and 
eat him as he had eaten the catfish. It was 
long before he dared go home. 

Tan wanted to ask about this queer crea- 
ture, but the muskrat had gone away since 
his narrow escape from the mink. So Tan 
went to Old Croaker, the great toad, who still 
spent most of his days sleeping in one of the 
hollow roots of Tan's old stump, and his 
nights catching insects and trilling his songs 
along the brink of the brook. 

" That was the eel," replied Old Croaker. 
" He has lived in that pool for two years, but 
I think this will be his last. Next spring he 
will start back to the sea." 

11 The sea ? Do you mean the great water, 
far away, where the water from our brook 



222 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

flows? I have heard of it from the blackbird 
and the old turkey buzzard, but I thought 
that none but birds make that journey." 

" I do not know how or why, Little 
Brother. I only know that when the eels are 
grown they return to the sea where they were 
hatched, and that they never come here 
again." 

It was long before Tan could find any 
creature able to tell him why the eel returns 
to the sea, or indeed why it ever leaves the 
sea if it is hatched there. He was afraid to 
ask the eel himself, for he had seen what sharp 
teeth and what a ferocious appetite he has. 
The minnows were silly little things, and 
knew less even than Tan — indeed, they began 
to play among themselves, and swam away 
while he was asking them. The bat, who 
knew more than most creatures because of his 
living among both the runners and the flyers, 
could help him but little. 

" Why don't you go to the snapping 
turtle?" inquired the bat when Tan asked 
him puzzling questions. " He has lived in 



SNAKE OR FISH? 223 

that pool for more years than you have claws 
on all your feet. He could tell you all about 
it." 

" For the same reason that you do not go to 
the cat when you want to know anything," 
replied Tan. " He'd eat me first and answer 
me afterwards." 

11 That's true. I hadn't thought of that." 
And the bat grinned. " Well, then, the frog 
ought to know." 

But the frog did not, and was not interested 
in knowing, as he said very plainly. He was 
as much afraid of the eel as Tan was — perhaps 
more, for he had to spend much of his time 
in the water. He had heard that eels grow 
from horsehairs that fall into the water, but 
he did not know. 

It happened one day that a ver} r small soft- 
shelled turtle, a cousin of the old snapping 
turtle, crept out of the water to sun himself 
on the bank, and Tan spied him. He was too 
small to have caught a field-mouse if he had 
wished, so Tan was not afraid to accost him. 
And he had lived many years in the pool, for 



224 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

turtles grow slowly, and so lie knew the 
family history of almost everybody in the 
pool. And from him Tan learned many of 
the curious ways of the eel. 

For all his snaky looks, the eel is truly a 
fish, for he lives in the water and breathes it 
through gills instead of breathing air into 
lungs. And he was really hatched in the sea, 
as Old Croaker said. This eel was one of 
many, many thousands who first opened their 
eyes to the world in the warm, salty waters of 
the Gulf of Mexico, a thousand miles from 
the pool where he lived. At first he was very 
small and slender and transparent so that he 
looked like a hair, as the frog had said he 
was. But he grew very rapidly as he ate 
little marine animals, and in a few weeks he 
was as long as one's finger. 

Then, with all his little brothers and sisters 
and cousins, hundreds and thousands of them, 
the little eel made his way into the mouth of 
the great Mississippi River and started to swim 
up its mighty stream. 

What caused them to leave the warm, salt 



SNAKE OR FISH? 225 

water where they were hatched, and enter the 
cooler, turbid current of the river? Mother 
Nature spoke to them in her own way, which 
all her creatures understand but cannot ex- 
plain. Some craving inside moved them to 
seek the fresh water and move up the stream. 
They could no more have told why than the 
robin can explain why he goes north in spring 
instead of building his nest in the south where 
it is always warm. 

But they heard and understood good old 
Mother Nature's call, these little eels, and 
they went swarming up the river. Some 
went into the Red River when they came to 
its mouth, some into the Arkansas, some into 
the Missouri, some into the Illinois, but this 
particular one turned into the Ohio River. 
Up that stream he went, and into the Wabash. 
Then into the White River, and into the east 
fork of it, and then into Nineveh creek, and 
thence into Pleasant Run brook, and so to 
the little pool where he had lived for two 
years. 

He had spent his time much as a snapping 



226 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

turtle does. He would burrow deep into the 
mud at the bottom of the pool, with just his 
muzzle and his keen eyes showing, and look- 
ing exactly like a pebble or a bit of wood ly- 
ing on the ooze. But let a worm, or a min- 
now, or a crawfish or even a duckling come 
within reach, and quick as an eyelash it was 
seized and eaten. 

Usually it is only on the darkest night that 
the eel will come out of the mud and swim 
about, but he is a beautiful and graceful swim- 
mer when he cares to move. Few fish are 
stronger or swifter in the water, and if he 
cares to leave the water and get on the bank, 
as he sometimes needs to do in his travels, he 
can even climb over brush and logs and rocks 
with the agility of a snake. 

This eel was once almost caught and eaten 
himself, for eels are as good to eat as fish. It 
was one summer night, when the three boys 
of the Bradley farm were catching catfish, 
which bite readily by night. They had 
baited their hooks with worms, and were 
dragging them along the bottom of the pool. 



SNAKE OR FISH? 227 

One dropped near where the eel lay hidden in 
the mud, and as soon as it was within reach 
he darted forth his head and seized it. 

The boy felt a heavy jerk at his line, and 
tried to pull it out of the water. The eel was 
lifted half his length from the mud before he 
realized that something was pulling at him. 
Then he exerted his strength, which is great 
for one of his size. With a might} 7 jerk he 
almost tore the rod from the astonished boy's 
hand, and with a snap of his powerful jaws 
he broke the hook short off. Then he dived 
to the bottom of the mud under the pool, and 
at his leisure worked the bit of hook out of 
his mouth. 

And for many a day thereafter the boy had 
a story to tell of the big, big fish which he 
had almost caught, but which broke his hook 
and got away. 

The winters the eel spent deep in the mud, 
as far back under the bank as he could get. 
He very much disliked cold weather, so when 
the nights grew chill he burrowed deep down, 
coiled up in a knot, and went to sleep until 



228 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

spring came again. He would do the same 
thing, the little turtle said, the next winter ; 
but as Old Croaker had predicted, when an- 
other spring came he would heed the call of 
old Mother Nature and start down to the sea 
again. 

The grown eels return to the sea to mate, 
and when the eggs are laid in some safe spot 
the eels die. So it is that the eels which each 
spring ascend the rivers are young ones, and 
those which go down to the sea are old ones. 

" Will you go to the sea, too, when you are 
grown?" asked Tan. 

" I go to the sea ! " exclaimed the turtle. 
" Not I. Here I was hatched, here I have 
lived many summers, and here I stay. I do 
not like travel. A freshet once washed me 
down stream almost to Nineveh creek, and I 
was many, many suns finding my way back." 

Tan was not sorry to know that the eel was 
soon going away never to return, for he was 
certainly a dangerous neighbour whenever, as 
sometimes happened, it was necessary for Tan 
to swim the stream. 




THE CARPENTER 



AN autumn storm swept across the Brad- 
ley farm. It began with an angry 
piling up of clouds in the southwest, 
flashes of lightning and growls of thunder, 
and finally a heavy wind that brought with it 
a downpour of rain. And as the rain ceased 
the wind swung around to the northwest, 
with a chill in its breath that promised more 
heavy frosts if the clouds cleared away before 
morning. 

The rain and the chill made little difference 
to Tan and Teckle, the little field-mice, but 
the wind did something which made a great 
deal of difference. It broke off, just at the 
ground, an immense old elm snag that had 

stood for many a year without leaf or branch 

229 



230 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



or even bark, and hurled it fair and square 
across the top of the old oak stump in which 
they lived. 

They were inside at the time, warm and 
dry and snug. They heard the noise and felt 
the jar as the old wreck crashed down upon 
their stump, and at first were afraid ; but as 
nothing further happened they soon forgot 
their fright. But when the rain was over and 
they went outside, they were amazed to see a 
great log lying across their stump, one end 
resting on the ground and the other in the air. 

They ran inside and climbed up to see 
whether this would compel any change in 
their way of living. They found that the 
stub of a limb had been thrust into the hollow 
top of their stump, almost closing up the hole, 
and leaving an opening only just large enough 
to allow them to pass in and out easily. There 
was no longer room to admit an animal much 
larger than themselves. 

" How lucky for us," they said. " Now no 
enemy can get at us, and we can still pass in 
and out as before." 



THE CARPENTER 231 

rt Yes, and how fortunate that the bat had 
gone out. He would have been frightened, 
and perhaps hurt, and he would have been 
cross for a moon." 

They crept out on top of the stump, and 
paused under the out-swelling side of the log. 

" What's this ? " exclaimed Teckle. " Beech- 
nuts on top of our stump. The squirrel must 
have carried them here." 

" Here are more ! " called out Tan. " And 
here are some in this hole in the log. Some- 
body has been storing them here. Must have 
been squirrels." 

When the bat came home in the morning, 
tired and chilly, he was at first disposed to 
complain at the new arrangement. But he 
soon saw the advantage of it, and began to 
talk as if it were all his own planning. 

" Why, this makes it just twice as safe, and 
cozy and comfortable for you," he cried, when 
he had squeezed himself inside and had hung 
himself up by the heels. " This will keep 
out every bit of snow, and no meddling 'coon 
or 'possum or mink or weasel can get in, un- 



232 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

less he finds the way through the muskrat's 
tunnel from below. And even then you can 
run out here and he cannot follow you." 

" Just see the nuts on top of our stump, and 
in these little holes in the old snag," said Tan. 
" Is this some squirrel's winter store? " 

Tired as he was, the bat scrambled up to look. 

" No squirrel ever did that," he said. " The 
squirrel wants his provisions in a large hole 
where he can climb in and sleep among them. 
Look. These are poked into a number of 
little holes — and the holes were made on 
purpose for them. I think the woodland 
carpenter must have done that." 

Tan and Teckle knew nothing about a 
carpenter, so they kept quiet, as they usually 
did when the bat talked in riddles. 

" Know what that is ? " he asked, seeing 
them puzzled. " A carpenter is a worker in 
wood. I mean the woodpecker. Of course 
you know him — the black and white bird 
with the red head that hammers on dead 
trees all summer long, and chatters so much 
about it." 



THE CARPENTER 233 

Yes, certainly they had seen and heard him, 
but they did not know that he stored up food 
for the winter. 

" Will he know how to find the nuts, now 
that the old snag has blown down ? " asked 
Teckle. 

" No, I think not. He won't know enough 
to look in this log — he'll think somebody has 
run away with his old snag, nuts and all. 
You'd as well take them yourselves." 

So they carried down into their own nest 
load after load of acorns, beechnuts, grains of 
corn, and sweet little chinquapins. And as 
they searched farther they found many little 
holes in the sides of the old snag, each one 
full and tightly packed with food. They 
were busy for a long time, and then were not 
sure that they had found all. 

11 I did not know that any bird stores 
up food for winter," remarked Teckle. " I 
thought that they go where it is warm, and 
stay there until summer comes again." 

" That is a very odd thing," the bat told 
them. " Very few birds do store up food for 



234 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

winter, though there are many that do not go 
away. Hawks, and owls, and sparrows, and 
quail — oh, numbers of them stay here all the 
year. Not one who stays lays up any food, 
while the woodpecker, who does lay up 
food, goes away in winter." 

Of course Tan and Teckle knew the wood- 
pecker — who could live for a whole summer 
in the woodland and not know him? If he 
had never made a sound they would still 
have noticed him by reason of his beautiful 
coat. He is all in black and white, as the bat 
said, except his head, which is a very bright 
red. He has no song — at least nothing which 
men call a song, though he makes music in 
his own way. His chief notes are a peculiar 
" quir-r-r-rk, quir-r-r-r-rk ? " with an inquisi- 
tive upturning at the end as if he were 
asking a question ; and a " chir-r-r-r-r-r, 
chir-r-r-r-r, chir-r-r-r," which is usually 
sounded when the birds are at play. 

Much louder and more noticeable is his 
drumming on a dead limb, or a board, or a 
shingle on the roof, or even on the corrugated 



THE CARPENTER 235 

iron with which some barns are roofed. 
Partly with the strong muscles of his neck 
and partly using the rebound of his beak 
from the hard substance on which he is 
drumming, he beats a tattoo that can be 
heard a long way off. These drummings 
seem to be signals, and are answered back 
and forth all over the woodland, just as calls 
with the voice are answered. 

The bat called the woodpecker a carpenter, 
and it is a fitting name. For that long, sharp 
beak is used much as a carpenter's chisel is. 
The bird uses it to tap on the surface of dead 
trees, and locate by the sound the grubs in- 
side. Then he chisels a hole in the wood 
and, with a long, sharp, slender tongue, he 
spears the grub and draws him forth and eats 
him. That same chisel beak chips off pieces 
of bark and exposes the insects hiding beneath. 
This knack of finding and eating insects makes 
the red-headed woodpecker one of man's best 
friends. 

He is also a fly-catcher of great ability, 
and from his perch may often be seen to dash 



236 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

away into the air and catch a passing insect. 
The boys used to amuse themselves by throw- 
ing pebbles past a woodpecker just to see him 
chase them. He never actually caught a 
pebble, but he often flew after it to see 
what kind of strange insect it was. Per- 
haps he mistook the pebbles for cicadas, or 
seventeen-year-locusts, of which he is very 
fond. 

The most tedious and difficult task the 
woodpecker performs with his chisel beak is 
the building of a nest. No, he does not carry 
sticks, or weeds, or grass, or feathers, or wool, 
or mud, or straw, or any of the other things 
which most birds use. Instead of building a 
nest on the outside of a tree, he carves him- 
self one on the inside. He always chooses a 
dead tree, or at least a dead limb, though 
the rest of the tree may be green. Indeed, he 
often prefers it so, for the green leaves then 
hide the entrance to his nest. In the far 
west, where trees are few, and in the east 
where the trees have been cut down, the 
woodpecker often annoys the telegraph and 



THE CARPENTER 237 

telephone companies by using their poles for 
a nest. 

When he has chosen the site for his nest, 
the woodpecker with that chisel beak drills 
a round hole straight in for several inches. 
Then he turns straight down towards the root 
of the tree, or the base of the limb if he has 
chosen a limb, and for a foot, or even two feet 
or more, he digs below the level of his door 
so that eggs and young shall be in complete 
darkness. It is not easy to believe the amount 
of work a pair of woodpeckers will do with no 
tools but their beaks. 

They could scarcely do the work at all if 
their feet and tails were not made to assist 
greatly. The feet have two toes in front and 
two behind, just like the parrot, so that they 
can climb up and down the side of a tree. 
The tail is rather long, and the feathers very 
stiff, the ends of the quills sticking out beyond 
the rest of the tail almost like spines. When 
the bird fixes his claws in the side of the tree, 
with his body almost upright, these spiny tail 
feathers are pressed hard against the tree, and 



238 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

stick into the bark and support much of his 
weight. Thus he has a powerful leverage 
when he begins to pound with his beak. 

As to the nest, when the hole has been 
drilled the nest is complete. No downy lin- 
ing for the woodpecker. No feathers, or wool, 
or moss. The mother bird lays four or five 
pure white, shiny eggs on the litter of chips 
at the bottom of the dark hole, and the father 
and mother take turns at sitting. 

The red-headed woodpecker is a shy bird, 
and seldom lingers near the nest or makes 
much noise there ; but the nest is not hard to 
find if one goes quietly about among the dead 
trees of the woodland and keeps a sharp 
lookout. Especially when the young are 
strong enough to clamber up to the mouth 
of the nest and call for food, they are easy to 
find. 

The three boys of the Bradley farm more 
than once caught young woodpeckers and tried 
to rear them as pets. Sometimes they kept 
them until they were able to fly fairly well, 
but for some reason they always died. They 



THE CARPENTER 239 

never showed much intelligence, and never a 
sign of affection for their masters. 

The old birds feed the young on wild fruits 
and berries, insects, grubs and worms. But 
the little ones will eat almost anything that is 
given them — perhaps that is why the boys 
were never able to rear one. They ate worms, 
grubs, bits of boiled egg, berries, fruit of any 
kind, bread soaked in water, and beetles of 
kinds which may or may not have been good 
for them. But however willing and well-mean- 
ing, no boy is as good a mother to a young bird 
as is the mother bird. After several failures 
the boys quit trying, and allowed the parent 
birds to rear their own little ones. 

But about this habit of the woodpecker lay- 
ing up provisions, although he goes south for 
the winter. Books by wise men say that the 
red-headed woodpecker always migrates ; but 
the three boys of the Bradley farm would tell 
you that he is at least very irregular about it. 
If all the woodpeckers do go away, some go so 
late that the}' might almost as w r ell have sta} T ed 
the rest of the winter ; and some return so 



240 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

early that they, too, had almost as well not 
have gone at all. There was not a month of 
the year when a woodpecker could not be found. 
It must have been for these late departures 
and early arrivals that the food was stored up, 
for in the dead of winter insects are few and 
not easy to find. 

Whatever his reasons, it is certain that the 
woodpecker had put up a generous store of 
nuts and corn, and that the autumn storm 
brought it right to the door of Tan and Teckle, 
who were glad to add it to what they had 
already laid away for winter. 





THE BLACK SHEEP 
CROSS the sugar maple grove 
and down into the creek bot- 
tom lands along the grass- 
grown track lumbered a heavy farm wagon, 
drawn by a team of large, strong mules. On 
the driver's seat was one of the hired men, and 
in the body of the wagon, romping and play- 
ing among a number of barrels and kegs, 
were the three boys of the Bradley farm and 
their dog. They were going to a neighbour's 
to help make cider, and were taking with 
them sacks in which to carry apples, and 
barrels to hold the cider. 

The boys were beating each other with the 

sacks, shouting and laughing, while the dog 

241 



242 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

barked his enjoyment, the hired man grinned 
at the fun, and the mules slanted their long 
ears backward trying to find in the hullabaloo 
some excuse to run away. 

" Oh, there's a mouse ! There's a mouse ! " 
called a boy as he lifted a sack from a keg. 

"Turn him out and let Colonel have 'im," 
said one. 

The boy could easily have reached into the 
keg and caught the mouse himself, but 
thought it more fun to let the dog scramble 
for it. So he tipped the keg suddenly over, 
and the mouse tumbled to the floor of the 
wagon. Colonel, the favourite dog, leaped for 
it, but in the confusion of tumbling barrels 
and jostling boys the mouse slipped beneath 
another keg. A boy lifted the keg that the 
dog might get at him, when the mouse, see- 
ing his danger, darted into a crack in the 
floor of the wagon, and so fell through to the 
ground. 

Pell-mell the boys and dog leaped from the 
wagon in chase, but the mouse dodged their 
first rush, ran beneath a fallen tree, and just 



THE BLACK SHEEP 243 

as the dog was within reach, scrambled into 
the old hollow stump where lived Tan and 
Teckle, the little field-mice. 

The dog whined in disappointment, and 
gnawed at the hollow root into which the 
mouse had run. One boy stood debating with 
himself what to do, but the others called to 
him to come away. And, as the hired man 
drove steadily on, he whistled to the dog and 
ran after the wagon, leaving the mouse in 
safety. 

" Let 'im go," said one. " He got away 
fair." 

" Yes, let him try earning his own living a 
while," said another. " It'll do him good. 
He'll appreciate home cooking when he gets 
back." 

" Do you s'pose he'll ever find the way back 
to the house?" 

11 Trust him ! It isn't a mile. He'll eat 
Thanksgiving dinner with us, at the very 
latest." 

Inside the stump reigned terror when the 
boys and dog were heard in the woodland. 



244 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

And when the frightened little blue-gray 
mouse ran into the hollow, and the boys 
shouted and the dog whined outside, Tan and 
Teckle were sure that their stump was to be 
torn apart and themselves caught and killed 
along with the stranger. But when the wagon 
had clattered its noisy way across the creek, 
and along the farther bank, and so out of 
sight and hearing, and they were still un- 
harmed, they took a good look at their visitor. 

He was smaller than the field-mice, with a 
long, slender muzzle, and a much longer tail. 
He grew calm almost as soon as the boys had 
turned away from the stump, as if he were used 
to have such narrow escapes and did not mind 
them. 

" May danger keep afar from you," said Tan. 

" Plenty be yours/' responded the visitor 
courteously. " How do you happen to be so 
far from the house? Have you, too, been 
carried away by mistake ? " he asked. 

11 No, we live here/' said Tan, simply. 

" Do you mean to tell me that you live 
alwaj^s in this awful place? I have heard 



THE BLACK SHEEP 245 

that some of our people stay out here, but I 
never believed it until now." 

" Perhaps it is an awful place," retorted 
Tan, " but I notice you didn't wait to be in- 
vited in." 

" I don't mean it that way ; it is really very 
cozy and nice. I mean, so far from the cellar 
and the pantry and the stoves. It must be 
so very inconvenient." 

Tan and Teckle knew nothing about these 
things, and could not see why their stump 
was not as good a place as any in the world. 

" And you're welcome to share the stump 
with us," Teckle said. " Here is room for a 
nest as large as ours, and since we got the 
woodpecker's store of nuts we have enough 
for all." 

The house mouse knew nothing about 
woodpeckers and their stores, but he was glad 
to be welcomed and not chased forth into the 
unknown dangers of the woodland. 

Soon there was something for all to eat. 
The house mouse knew how to chisel the soft 
heart out of the grains of corn — he had often 



246 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

done that. And he had often eaten nuts 
which the boys brought to the house. But he 
had no taste for the bits of bark and grass 
roots which Tan and Teckle liked. 

" Do you mean to say," he demanded, " that 
this is all the farmer keeps here for you to 
eat ? I wonder you look so well. Why don't 
you come up to the house where there is 
plenty of everything ? " 

" What is there lacking here that we could 
have at the farmhouse ? " asked Teckle, much 
surprised that they had not everything that 
any one could wish. 

" Doesn't he furnish you with cheese, or 
butter, or bread, or apples, or bacon, or cake, 
or sugar, or even milk ? " 

" Man furnishes us nothing," Tan told him. 
" The nuts and roots and bark we gather for 
ourselves. The corn and wheat we get in the 
fields when man has taken what he wants and 
has left some on the ground." 

" And you have to gather these things 
yourselves ? Man lets you do all that work ? " 

The house mouse could scarcely believe 



THE BLACK SHEEP 247 

that they were not making sport of him, but 
the field-mice assured him that they had 
always lived just so, proud of their independ- 
ence. 

"But how do you keep warm in winter? 
No man lives here, and I see no way of making 
this place warm. Now in the farmhouse, 
man always has fires in winter, keeping the 
house warm and pleasant, and making a fine 
dim light to play by when he is asleep." 

" The only thing we know that keeps us 
warm is the sun, and man has nothing to do 
with that. When it is only a little cold we 
shall not mind it ; if it gets too bitter we will 
curl up and sleep until it is warmer," Tan 
told him. They had never yet seen a winter, 
but old Mother Nature had told them, in her 
own way, what they must do. 

11 Do you have any excitement ? The 
farmer keeps numbers of cats to catch us at 
the house — and a cat is many times bigger 
than a mouse, and must eat many times more 
food. But that is man's idea of saving what 
we eat. It is great fun to tease the cat — creep 



248 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

to the mouth of a hole, and pretend you are 
going out, and make him wait, and wait, and 
sometimes jump and miss. Do you have any 
sport like that?" 

" Yes," replied Tan drily, " you can have 
all the sport you want. You might try teasing 
the owl if you'll enjoy it. And the mink 
would afford you a little excitement. And a 
snake would delight you, I have no doubt. 
Or, if you like the water, there's a snapping 
turtle, and an eel, and any number of fish in 
the brook." 

When Tan had explained what all these 
creatures were, and how they tried day and 
night to catch and eat him, the house mouse 
declared that he was going back to the house 
at once. 

" This is a dreadful way to live," he told 
the field-mice. " No way to keep warm except 
just to sleep if you get too cold ; nothing to 
eat but what we have just had, and you have 
to work all summer to get enough of that to 
keep you alive in winter; instead of a few 
cats to tease, a whole woods full of owls and 



THE BLACK SHEEP 249 

minks and snakes and other monsters to catch 
you when you go out to get something to 
keep from starving. I will start as soon as it 
is dark, and I will sleep in the farmhouse 
to-morrow." 

" I should think you'd be ashamed to live 
in the man's house when he does not want 
you, and to eat the food he gathers for himself, 
and depend on him to furnish you everything 
you need." 

Tan highly disapproved any form of depend- 
ence. 

" It does not belong to man," declared the 
house mouse. " Who does all his work ? 
The horse. Why does he keep cows and pigs 
and chickens, and kill the meat eaters who 
try to take them ? Because he wants to kill 
and eat them himself. He lives by the labour 
and the lives of others, and it is right for us to 
live off him if we can. You do your share, 
too. I have heard that your brothers live in 
his grain stacks, and ruin more than they eat. 
And others of your family live in the orchard, 
and in the winter gnaw bark off the apple 



250 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

trees and kill them. And I notice that you 
have a nest fall of corn and wheat. 

11 You are right to do it, but you need not 
find fault with me for going a little farther 
and making man furnish me with everything." 

That very night the house mouse started 
back to the farmhouse. But he was far from 
sleeping in the house the next day, as he had 
boasted he would. How he knew the direc- 
tion nobody can tell, but he did know it. He 
made his way in the twilight to the old water 
gate across Pleasant Run brook, and scam- 
pered across it in safety. He got across with- 
out adventure only because the screech owl 
was at that moment trying to find a fussy 
sparrow which was complaining and moving 
about on his perch in the wild grape-vine. 

Once across the brook, the mouse followed 
the fence row, running on the rails, and hiding 
under them when he was frightened, which was 
very, very often. And with good cause, too. 
For the red fox had been foiled in his attempt 
to get a hen that evening, and on his way 
back to the woodland he met the mouse on 



THE BLACK SHEEP 251 

his travels. The fox was just too late to catch 
the mouse before he got under a rail lying 
very close to the ground, and when he tried to 
dig him out the mouse scrambled from place 
to place until he found a hollow rail and hid 
in it until the fox grew tired and went away. 

Farther along an owl made a swoop at the 
little fellow, and missed him by the barest 
fraction of a second as he leaped to the other 
side of the fence. And again he had to lie 
hidden for a long time. 

Soon after this adventure he found a burrow 
running deep into the ground, and stopped to 
rest in the mouth of it. Well it was that he 
did, for the mink, too, was travelling along 
that fence row. At sight of him the mouse 
ran headlong into the burrow, and to the very 
bottom of it. The mink started to dig him 
out, but after working for a little while, found 
that the burrow was deeper than he thought, 
and went away. But the mouse, fearing that 
the mink was watching at the hole like a cat, 
did not come out at all that night. All next 
day he lay in the burrow with nothing to eat, 



252 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and at night took up his journey again, 
hunted at every step by some enemy. 

It was many a day after his boast in the old 
stump that a thin, hungry, tired, frightened 
house mouse crept in at a cellar window, and 
made his way to the nest behind the cellar stairs 
of the farmhouse. What tales he had to tell 
the dozens of brothers and sisters and cousins 
who crowded around him to hear 1 They had 
all thought that the cat got him that day when 
he climbed into the keg among the sacks, and 
was carried out by the hired man and taken 
away in the farm wagon. 

Wild stories he recited for them of the out- 
side world. And the thing they could least 
understand was the account of the two little 
field-mice who lived in a hollow stump, and 
had so many enemies to watch, and had to 
gather all their food for themselves, and had 
so few things to eat, and yet were so bright 
and cheerful and happy. The house mice 
could never understand how that could be. 




I 



THE BIRD WHO DOESN'T 
CARE 



F I were as lazy as some people, I think 

I would go just a little farther, and not 

take the trouble to come up north at all," 

said the old turkey buzzard, wiping his beak 

clumsily on the log whereon he sat in the 

warm, autumnal sunshine. He had just 

feasted off dead pig until he was too heavy 

to fly. There had been cholera among the 

farmer's pigs that year, and the old turkey 

buzzard had found life very pleasant. There 

were many dead pigs to be eaten. For that 

reason he had delayed his yearly journey to 

the south. 

Tan and Teckle, the little field-mice, were 

uncertain what the great bird meant. They 

had always thought that if there were a lazy 

253 



254 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

bird in the world, or one careless in his per- 
sonal habits, it was the old turkey buzzard. 
But they would not say such a thing to him. 
So they kept quiet, and presently he went on, 
talking as much to himself as to them : 

" You'd think now, to see them all so soci- 
able and pleasant, with their young ones 
among them, making ready to go south, that 
they'd lived a perfectly honest and respect- 
able life all summer, and had done all the 
work expected of them. Wouldn't you, 
now?" 

Tan looked in the direction where the old 
turkey buzzard's gaze was fixed, and saw a 
flock of blackish-brown birds wheeling over- 
head, and presently saw them settle on the 
ground. They were the cowbirds. He knew 
them perfectly well by sight, for all summer 
long they had lived in the pasture among the 
cattle, happy and contented and never quar- 
relsome, and he had always thought them 
very pleasant neighbours indeed. 

" Well," he replied to the old turkey buz- 
zard's question, " they have been very quiet 




" AND YOU NEVER WILL SEE THEM DO ANYTHING LIKE 
WORK," WENT ON THE BUZZARD 



THE BIRD WHO DOESN'T CARE 255 

all summer. I do not see why they are not 
pleasant to have around." 

" Ever see them do anything but eat ? " 

Tan had to admit that he had not. 

" Never saw one of them building a nest, 
did you?" 

Though he had not thought of it before, Tan 
again had to say no. 

" There are numbers of young birds in that 
flock ; do you see any of the old ones feeding 
them, or looking after them in any way ? " 

No, the young ones seemed to have to seek 
their own food, just as the old birds did. 

" And you never will see them do any- 
thing like work," went on the buzzard, his 
head growing redder than ever with anger. 
" They never pair off as respectable birds do ; 
they live all together in one flock. They 
never build a nest ; when the female is ready to 
lay an egg she hunts the nest of a sparrow or 
some other small bird, lays her egg in its nest, 
and goes back to the flock. They never sit 
on their eggs, nor feed the young, nor do any 
of the things other birds do to bring up a 



256 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

family. They just live together and eat, and 
make others hatch their eggs and feed their 
young/' 

The old turkey buzzard had grown so ex- 
cited by this time, quite contrary to his usual 
custom, that he actually spread his wings and 
flapped away, heavy as he was from his feast. 

It was a very bad account he had given of 
the cowbird, but Tan and Teckle thought 
that there might be some mistake. So one 
day, when the flock of cowbirds had followed 
the cattle down into the woodland pasture, 
they asked them about it. 

" Is it true that you build no nest?" 
Teckle asked one of the mother birds. 

" Of course it is true; what of it?" was 
the reply. 

" I thought all birds build nests and take 
care of their young ones." 

" What's the use ? The other birds have 
nests already built, so why should I trouble 
to build another? And the other birds are 
going to sit on their eggs, so if I can put 
mine in the same nest it is no harder work 



THE BIRD WHO DOESN'T CARE 257 

for them to hatch mine with theirs. And 
while they are carrying food to their own 
young they might as well carry a little more, 
and feed mine." 

" What do the other birds think of it ? " 

" Most of them are so stupid that they 
never know it at all. They sit on my eggs, 
hatch my little ones, and bring them up with 
their own, and never know the difference. 
And if they did, I don't care." 

" What do they do when they do find 
out?" 

" Oh, sometimes they build a new nest on 
top of the old, and leave my egg in the old 
nest, and lay fresh eggs in the new nest. But 
that is only one egg lost, and I don't care." 

The flock rose in the air and flew away to 
another herd of cattle, to eat the insects that 
always swarm around the herds. 

So the old turkey buzzard's story was true. 
These birds shirk all the work of bringing up 
their little ones. 

But Tan, also, was right — the cowbird is 
not an unpleasant neighbour. He never fights 



258 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

or quarrels, never meddles with any other 
bird's affairs except in the matter of sneaking 
eggs into the nest, and is always care-free and 
happy. He is very like some people who 
put all their troubles on another person's 
shoulders and then take great credit to them- 
selves for being cheerful. 

When the cowbird lays her egg in another 
bird's nest, she usually chooses the nest of a 
bird smaller than herself. This is not because 
she is afraid of the other bird, but because 
her little one will be bigger and stronger than 
the young of the other bird, and so get a 
larger share of the food. It is even said that 
the young cowbird gets under the other little 
birds and pushes them out of the nest, but 
this has not been fully shown. It is surely 
bad enough to take most of the food, and let 
the rightful occupants of the nest go hungry ; 
it would be very ungrateful to throw out of 
the nest the little ones of the parent birds 
who rear the foundlings. 

Wise men, who have spent a great deal of 
time and taken a great deal of pains to watch 



THE BIRD WHO DOESN'T CARE 259 

the cowbird, have never seen the young one 
throw its foster brothers and sisters out of the 
nest. But they have sometimes seen the 
foster parents carrying away the dead bodies 
of their own little ones, and they are justified 
in believing that the young cowbird was so 
strong and so noisy that it crowded the 
mother bird's own nestlings to one side, and 
trampled upon them, and got all the food 
that the parent birds brought, so that the in- 
truder lived and grew strong while the others 
starved. 

Mother Nature has adapted the cowbird in 
a very curious way to fit her eggs and little 
ones to be cared for by other birds. If the 
cowbird lays its egg in a nest which is just 
finished, and before the owner of the nest has 
laid her eggs in it, very often the bird which 
built the nest will leave it and build a 
new one, and the cowbird's egg will not be 
hatched. And if the cowbird waits until the 
other bird has laid her eggs, and then puts 
her egg into the nest, the mother bird would 
hatch her own eggs first, and then quit sit- 



260 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

ting to feed her little ones, and again the cow- 
bird's egg would not be hatched — that is, this 
would happen if the eggs all took the same 
time to hatch. 

But it has been found that the cowbird's 
eggs will hatch two or three days earlier than 
the eggs of the smaller birds in whose nests 
they are usually laid. So the cowbird can 
safely wait until the other bird lays her eggs, 
and then lay her own in the nest with them, 
perfectly sure that her own little one will 
hatch before the others, and so get the most 
attention. 

Just how the cowbird acquired this habit 
which so aroused the anger of the old turkey 
buzzard may never be known. Men who 
know a great deal about these birds think 
that it may have started in quarrels over 
nests, when cowbirds tried to take possession 
of nests that other birds had made, and were 
driven away after one or more eggs had been 
laid, and the rightful owner of the nest 
hatched and reared the little cowbirds. 

Whatever the beginning, the habit is now 



THE BIRD WHO DOESN'T CARE 261 

firmly fixed in the cowbirds all over America, 
from one ocean almost to the other, wherever 
they are found. They do not mate and live 
in pairs, but flock together all the summer 
long, neither building nests, sitting on the eggs, 
nor feeding their young. No wonder the old 
turkey buzzard was vexed when he thought 
of such irregular habits. 

There is a very strange similarity of habits in 
this regard between two families of birds not at 
all related, and with a wide ocean between them 
so that neither could have learned it from the 
other. In Europe is a bird called the cuckoo, 
which does almost exactly the same trick as the 
cowbird. But the cuckoo is a large bird, and 
cannot get into the nest of a little bird, so she is 
driven to lay her egg on the ground, and take 
it in her beak and carry it to the nest of some 
little bird. 

It is odd that a female cuckoo, which has 
been hatched and reared by one kind of bird, 
will seek out the nest of that same kind of 
bird for her egg when she is grown ; and still 
more odd that her egg is often coloured so like 



262 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

that of the bird in whose nest it is placed that 
it can scarcely be told from the rightful 
occupant's eggs. At first this was thought a 
fairy story when a man said that he had found 
such cases, but a number of men watched for 
several summers, and they finally agreed that 
a female cuckoo will seek the nest of the kind 
of bird which reared her, and will lay eggs 
coloured like those of that bird. So it is that 
cuckoos lay eggs of very different colours ac- 
cording to the kind of nest they use. 

Now in America there is a cuckoo very 
closely related to the European cuckoo, in 
looks and actions and all its habits except the 
one of laying its eggs in another bird's nest. 
The American cuckoo never does this, but 
builds a nest and rears its young with great 
affection. 

In Europe there is also a bird very like the 
American cowbird, but it lacks this one bad 
habit of shirking the work of building a nest 
and bringing up a family. 

41 I don't see how any mother could be so 
foolish as not to know her own young," said 



THE BIRD WHO DOESN'T CARE 263 

Teckle when the cowbird had told her how 
she gets rid of the work of bringing up a 
family. " I should know my own little ones 
among so many I could not count them. Why, 
suppose the house mouse should put her little 
ones into my nest — wouldn't I know them at 
once?" 

" Birds are very foolish about that some- 
times," said the bat. " I have seen an old hen 
— old enough to know better — hatch out a 
brood of ducklings and go wild when they 
went into the water to swim. She never would 
believe that they were not her own chickens, 
and was very certain that they would drown 
if they went into the water. And I have seen 
a hen peck to death one of her own chickens 
because it was hatched under another hen, and 
given to her a day after she had left the nest 
with the early ones. A hen doesn't know any 
more than a horse." 

" I saw young turkeys, once, following a 
hen," remarked Tan. 

" Of course," replied the bat scornfully. 
" A hen will mother anything that comes out 



264 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

of her nest — goslings, little guineas, ducks, 
turkeys — I even heard of those boys getting a 
hen to hatch out some hawk eggs once, but she 
didn't know how to feed them and they 
died." 

But though all their neighbours talked about 
the habits of the cowbird, it made no differ- 
ence. The flock played about the meadows 
until very late, following the herds of cattle, 
feeding on insects and seeds alike, and seeming 
perfectly happy until the time came for them 
to fly away to the south for the winter. 

No matter what the neighbours thought and 
said, the cowbird did not care. 




v/ 



SUPPER TIME AND BEDTIME 

THERE was a great commotion 
in the tall grass of the wood- ' 
land. A great, green frog made his 
way to the creek with prodigious leaps, rising 
high above the top of the grass at each bound, 
and expressing his fright by loud croaks. 
And when he reached the bank he did not 
pause, but went headlong over the edge into 
the water with a loud splash, and was seen no 
more. 

A field-sparrow that had been hiding in a 
tuft of grass took wing, darting this way and 
that as if she expected to be pursued in the 
air, and with chatterings of terror went far 
across the meadow before she alighted. 

Old Croaker himself, the fat old toad, big 
265 



266 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

and dignified and important-looking as he 
was, cried aloud in fear and hastened to hide 
himself under the side of a stone. 

And all this time, if you had been watching 
from the top of the old stump in which lived 
Tan and Teckle, the field-mice, you would 
have seen nothing more terrible than a gentle 
waving of the grass tops, showing that some 
one of the little wild people was passing by. 

But they knew — the frogs and the birds and 
the toads and the insects in the grass. They 
knew, whether or not they saw it, that beneath 
those waving grass tops was a long, slender, 
brownish form, covered with scales instead of 
hair or feathers, and crawling flat on the 
ground instead of running on legs. And they 
knew that at the front of that long, lithe body 
was a sharp little head with a nose that could 
smell its prey a long distance off, and with 
keen little eyes, and with a large mouth armed 
with many sharp little teeth — a mouth already 
large, and which could be stretched enough to 
swallow even so large a creature as Old Croaker 
the toad. 



SUPPER TIME AND BEDTIME 267 

Yes, it was a garter-snake moving through 
the grass. The time was at hand when he 
must get into bed for the winter, and this was 
his supper time. 

He was large for a garter-snake, almost three 
feet long. In the hot days of summer he had 
been very swift of motion, and vigorous in 
his pursuit of prey. But in these days of 
nightly autumnal frosts he moved much more 
slowly and uncertainly, which is why so many 
of his intended victims escaped him. 

Even so, not all of them got away. There 
were many fat, lazy grasshoppers of the kind 
the boys called " lubbers " that were too heavy 
and slow to get out of the way. These the 
snake caught and swallowed in great numbers, 
and as each was of enormous size, he soon had 
a very fair supper. 

He could still eat a great deal more — oh yes. 
The garter-snake can stretch almost as if he 
were made of rubber, and there is no knowing 
how much more he could have eaten. He 
would have liked especially to swallow a pair 
of field-mice as dessert, and if he had not been 



268 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

interrupted he might have done so. He came 
gliding out of the tall grass into the little clear 
space about the old stump, his forked tongue 
darting in and out of his mouth, his beady 
eyes watching for the mice which his keen 
nostrils told him were near. 

Tan and Teckle, sitting in the doorway of 
their hollow stump, heard the commotion in 
the grass, and guessed the cause of it. They 
were watching, and saw the snake as soon as 
he poked his head from the grass. They 
turned back into the stump without a sound, 
and ran and hid themselves in its farthest re- 
cesses. Even this would not have saved them 
if something else had not happened just then. 

From the opposite direction there came 
sounds of a disturbance very like that which 
the garter-snake had caused. Birds screamed 
and flew, frogs croaked with terror and fled to 
the water, and all the little creatures took to 
their heels or their wings, and got away with 
all the speed they had. 

The garter-snake heard the commotion. He 
thought it might be his mate, who was also out 






SUPPER TIME AND BEDTIME 269 

in the woodland that afternoon getting a 
supper before her long winter's sleep. But 
while it might be his mate, again it might not 
be, and he was wise enough to wait and see 
before following the field-mice into a hollow 
stump where an enemy might follow him and 
have him where there was no escape. 

The disturbance in the grass came nearer 
and nearer, and finally, from the opposite side 
of the little clearing, a shiny, black, scaly 
head was thrust from the grass. Two keen 
eyes looked about, and two nostrils sniffed the 
air to be sure that all was safe. And then a 
great blacksnake, full six feet long, glided out 
into plain view. 

At sight of this terrible foe the garter-snake 
forgot all about the two little field-mice that 
he had wanted for dessert. Like a whip-lash 
jerked by an impatient boy he flashed into 
the grass and ran with all his might. From 
being the hunter he had in an instant become 
the hunted, for the blacksnake would swallow 
him as quickly as he himself would have 
swallowed the mice, and he fled, as full of ter- 



270 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

ror as the frogs and the mice and the birds 
had been at his approach. 

Good need he had to run, too, for the black- 
snake had seen him. Like a shadow the lithe, 
black form shot across the little clearing and 
into the grass in pursuit of the garter-snake. 

Then there was a most exciting race. With 
a fourth of his body lifted from the ground so 
that his head was above the grass tops where 
he could watch his prey, the blacksnake raced 
through the grass, making a tremendous rus- 
tling. If he had kept in the grass the garter- 
snake must have been caught, but he was 
shrewd, enough to make for the old worm 
fence. Through it he dashed, and into a 
brush heap, out at the farther side, under a 
decaying log, back to the fence and through 
it, and down along the other side at top speed. 

The blacksnake was thrown off the track 
by these sudden turnings, and took the wrong 
direction. The garter-snake, by putting forth 
his utmost speed, was soon safe on the hill- 
side far away. The fright had taken away 
his appetite, and he was ready to seek his 






SUPPER TIME AND BEDTIME 271 

burrow and take his winter's sleep, glad 
enough that he had not himself been the des- 
sert at the blacksnake's supper. 

So the garter-snake made his way up the 
hill to the meadow where he and his mate 
and ever so many of their cousins had 
planned to spend the winter. They had 
found an old, deserted woodchuck hole which 
just suited their purpose, and, after making 
sure that he had not been followed, he crept 
in. There he found his mate and all the 
others, already twining themselves into a 
round ball so that the little heat their bodies 
make would keep them warm. Gliding down 
into the depths of the hole, the garter-snake 
thrust himself into the wriggling mass, and 
when next day the cold weather came on in 
earnest, they all fell asleep together. 

Though almost every living thing fears the 
garter-snake, it is one of the most harmless 
creatures in the world except to those little 
ones on which it feeds. The garter-snake will 
always run when man approaches, unless it be 
a mother snake with little ones to protect ; and 



272 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

even then, if she can get her young out of 
danger, she will run rather than fight. 

Her fighting is mostly pretense, for she 
really has no weapons which any one need 
fear. She has no poison and no fangs — noth- 
ing but tiny little teeth which help her to 
catch and hold and swallow her prey. They 
are so small that they are no more dangerous 
than little briars, and can rarely make the 
blood flow from the back of one's hand. She 
will coil up, and thrust her tongue out, and 
open wide her mouth and strike as fiercely as 
the most venomous serpent, but there is no 
danger in her bite. 

As soon as the warm spring days come the 
snakes uncoil themselves and creep out into 
the warm sunshine, where they mate and go 
into the woods and fields in pairs to live. Be- 
fore long the little snakes are born — yes, born 
alive, and not hatched from eggs as is the case 
with many kinds of snakes. There is always 
a large family, twenty-five to forty little ones 
to each mother, and one observer reports as 
many as eighty. 



SUPPER TIME AND BEDTIME 273 

The mother garter-snake is very devoted to 
her little ones. They are able to run about 
almost from the first, and catch little insects, 
but she keeps them close to her, teaching 
them how to escape from danger, how to hunt 
for food, what to eat and what to avoid, how 
to run and how to hide from an enemy. She 
will fight fiercely in their defense. 

There are many varieties of garter-snake, 
but except in the matter of size and colour 
they are very much alike. The common kind 
is brown above, with yellowish markings, and 
a dirty white colour beneath. There is always 
one stripe down the back, and usually one 
along each side, though sometimes the side 
stripes are very faint, and sometimes broken 
up into mottles. Likewise the brown of the 
back may sometimes be so light as to be a tan, 
and sometimes so dark as to be almost black. 
Also the under part may vary from greenish 
white to dark olive green or almost black. 

All garter-snakes are quite at home in the 
water. They swim, dive, catch and eat min- 
nows, and behave so much like water-snakes 



274 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

that the ordinary observer cannot tell them 
apart. 

Most people take a foolish pride in being 
afraid of all snakes, and in killing every one 
they can. It is little use to tell them how 
silly and how cruel it is to kill such a harm- 
less creature. Their only reply is " a snake's 
a snake," and there is no answer to such un- 
reasonable argument. There are really very, 
very few kinds of poisonous snakes in this 
country, and most of them have been killed. 

The three boys of the Bradley farm soon 
grew to know that nearly all snakes are harm- 
less, and they never killed one except for an 
experiment, as when they allowed a snake to 
swallow Old Croaker, and then cut the snake 
open to see if the toad were still alive. They 
often caught and played with garter-snakes 
and blacksnakes, and laughed at their efforts 
to bite. And when the snakes learned that 
they were not harmed, they ceased trying to 
bite, and even seemed to enjoy having their 
heads rubbed. 




WINTER AT LAST 



AFTER weeks of mel- 
low, hazy, dreamy 
days and cool, crisp nights, winter laid 
a heavy hand on the old Bradley farm, on 
woodland and meadow, on field and swamp, 
on hill and river-bottom. It came on as 
many storms do in that section, with a chill 
rain from the southwest. After a downpour 
of a night and a day the wind veered to the 
northwest and blew cold, the rain changed 
first to sleet and then to snow, and when an- 
other day dawned there was a thick blanket 
of white over all the land, the streams ran 
gurgling as if half choked under bridges of 
snow-covered ice, and a bitter north wind 

lashed and stung all who dared face it. 

275 



276 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

Yes, winter had come, but it had not sur- 
prised one of the little wild creatures. Except 
a few hardy ones like the red-headed wood- 
pecker and the robin, who never leave until 
they are driven, the birds that journey south 
for the winter were already on their way. 
Blackbird and swallow, nightjar and swift, 
killdee and whippoorwill, all were hundreds 
of miles away, on their way to the land where 
it never snows. 

Overhead were passing the long, harrow-like 
lines of wild geese and ducks, who are dressed 
in coats so warm that they do not feel the 
cold, and who love to wait for the strong 
north winds to drive them like ships to their 
winter home. The herons, blue and white 
and green, the twittering bluebirds, the chat- 
tering blackbirds and the socialistic cowbirds — 
all had started south in good time. 

And those who do not go away for the 
winter were not surprised. They had known 
all the time that winter with its snow and 
cold would come, and they could but wait. 
The bobwhite quail were cuddled up, each 



WINTER AT LAST 277 

covey in a circle with tails to the centre, 
pressed close together for warmth, but so 
placed that each bird, with a single step 
forward, had room to spread his wings and 
whir away. They squatted under the lee of a 
great log and the snow had drifted over them 
and completely covered them, but they were 
warm and comfortable. Their only danger 
from the storm was that a hard crust might 
form on top of the snow, and hold them pris- 
oner so long that they would starve. That 
sometimes happens. Or, the snow might fall 
so deep and lie on the ground so long that 
they could get no food. That, too, sometimes 
happens. Apart from that, almost their only 
danger was that the red fox might scent them, 
leap upon them and catch two or three before 
they could get on the wing. 

The owl does not leave his home, winter or 
summer. Sometimes he goes lean in winter 
because most of the birds go away ; but 
always there are a few birds, many rabbits and 
mice, and about the barn there are rats, and at 
the farmhouse there are chickens. He was in 



278 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

his hollow tree in the woodland waiting for 
dark to begin his hunting. 

Striped Face, the raccoon, was asleep in his 
hollow box-elder tree. He can always find 
something in the way of minnows or birds or 
roots, unless it is very, very cold ; and in that 
case, being an own cousin to the bear, he can 
roll himself into a ball and sleep until warm 
weather. 

Many of the insects perished, but they 
knew from the first that they could live 
but a single summer. The grasshoppers, the 
crickets, the katydids, the butterflies — all who 
had escaped the frosts — were claimed by the 
bitter cold. But their lifework was done. 
The grasshoppers had put well-filled egg cases 
into the ground, and these would hatch out 
thousands of grasshoppers the next spring. 
The crickets and katydids had made like pro- 
vision for the next generation. The butter- 
flies, too, had laid eggs which would either 
hatch in the spring, or had already hatched, 
and the caterpillars had attained their growth 
and had laced themselves up in cocoons for 



WINTER AT LAST 279 

the winter, and would awaken and emerge in 
warm weather, with beautiful wings. 

Some, like many kinds of spiders, lay asleep 
among the dead leaves and grasses, and would 
awaken when warm weather returned. Some 
had died, but had left cocoons full of eggs 
which would hatch in the spring. 

The ants and the honeybees, who live to be 
several years old, had all stored up their 
winter provisions, and were asleep or eating 
slowly of what they had provided against this 
time of scarcity. 

The frogs and toads and turtles and eels had 
all buried themselves far below the reach of 
frost, and were sound asleep, neither knowing 
nor caring what was the weather. And the 
bat had hung himself, head downward, in the 
hollow of an immense sycamore tree deep in 
the wood, and was safe for the winter. 

The squirrels were asleep in their hollow 
tree, and with them was a great store of corn 
and nuts against the time when they should 
waken and be hungry. 

The muskrat had made him a huge nest of 



280 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

sticks and grasses in the creek, and in the 
cellar of it he had hidden roots, and tender 
twigs, and such fruit and vegetables as he 
could find, and was quite safe and happy. 

The fish had no need to do anything. Un- 
less the stream should freeze solidly to the 
bottom they can always move about and get 
what they need to eat in winter ; and it is even 
claimed that some kinds of fish can be frozen 
solidly into the ice, and yet take up life anew 
when they thaw out in the spring. 

But how fared Tan and Teckle, the little 
field-mice, in their old hollow oak stump ? 
They had never seen a winter, but Mother 
Nature told them what it was to be, and they 
had laid in ample store of nuts and seeds and 
corn. So when they found the ground cov- 
ered deep beneath a mantle of white, and 
heard the north wind howl and roar through 
the naked boughs of the forest trees, they were 
not afraid. 

" I'll go out and see what this is like," said 
Tan, stoutly. So he climbed up from the nest 
in the lower part of the stump, and stuck his 



WINTER AT LAST 281 

nose bravely into the snow, while Teckle lay 
quiet in the warm nest. 

" I believe I could find my way to the 
creek," said Tan to himself. He struck out 
through the snow, not trying to walk on top, 
but creeping on the frozen ground and making 
a tunnel under the snow. In the summer he 
had made many runways on the ground under 
the long, matted grass, which partly hid him 
from view. Now he did the same with the 
snow. 

It was great sport to be able to push right 
through the snow, and he had no trouble in 
finding his way to the creek bank. He 
scrambled down to the water's edge and found 
a willow clump. Not because he needed it, but 
just because he could, Tan stripped off some of 
the soft, sweet bark and made a bundle of it 
to carry back to the nest. This is one trick 
which makes field-mice a plague to the farmer 
when they live about his orchards. The little 
rascals, under cover of a deep snow, will some- 
times girdle young apple trees all the way 
around so that they die ; and in any case if 



282 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 

they gnaw them they scar them and retard 
their growth and cause them to be weakly. 

Tan went here and there, up and down and 
across the woodland in a dozen directions just 
for the sport of it. There was something very 
comforting in the knowledge that he could 
now go anywhere he chose, at any time of the 
day or night, without being seen. He ran 
beneath the deep snow, and neither owl nor 
fox, nor boy nor dog, nor any other enemy 
could reach him. 

So he drove tunnels out to the old beech 
tree and grabbled in the leaves for nuts ; and 
to the old hollow log on the creek bank that 
he might have a second place of refuge in 
case of sudden danger ; and he even made one 
tunnel across the brook of Pleasant Run on 
the ice, just to see whether he could reach the 
old corn-field that way, though he did not try 
to go that far. 

Tan was out for a long, long time. He 
wondered why Teckle did not come out and 
join in the fun, for beneath the snow it was 
neither cold nor dangerous. Finally he ran 



WINTER AT LAST 283 

back through his newly-built tunnel to the 
stump, and went scrambling down in haste 
to the nest. 

" Come out and see the new trails I have 
made ! " he called out. " We can go any- 
where we choose now, and nobody can see 
us." 

There was no reply, so he paused just out- 
side the nest to listen. Was it possible that any 
harm could have befallen Teckle while he was 
away ? He heard a faint rustling of the wool 
and grass that lined the soft, dark old nest, and 
his ears caught just the faintest squeak, not 
half so loud as the tiniest chirp of a cricket. 
Tan's heart bounded with joy. Yes, there it 
was again — two of them at least — " Squeak ! 
Squeak ! " Baby mice ! 

Tan crept softly into the nest. There lay 
Teckle, with the soft light of motherhood 
shining again in her eyes, and beside her, 
nudging about in the soft lining of the nest, 
pushing each other away and snuggling close 
to her for warmth, were nine queer, wrinkly, 
hairless little field-mice, their eyes tightly 



284 WOODSY NEIGHBOURS 



closed, and their voices only the faintest 
squeak. 

Soon there were lively times in the old stump. 
It Was not long until the little ones had their 
eyes open, and by that time they were strong 
enough to creep all around the nest. A few 
more days and they could climb out of the 
nest and run back and forth through the old 
stump. Next they were able to climb up and 
down the inside of the long tap root, and it 
seemed no time at all until they were romping 
and storming all over the place. 

Lucky it was that they had laid in such 
store of food, or some one might have gone 
hungry. Such appetites as the little rascals 
had ! But, besides all that they had gathered 
for themselves, there was the hoard of nuts 
and acorns of the woodpeckers which the 
wind storm had brought them, and the musk- 
rat had left fruit and vegetables in his burrow, 
so that there was no danger of any one starv- 
ing. 

All that winter there was snow on the ground, 
and the family was safe. The young ones 



WINTER AT LAST 285 

were soon tearing back and forth through the 
tunnels, trying their new teeth on the willow 
bark, and digging in the leaves for nuts with 
no thought of danger. So lived the happy 
family in the old oak stump, and when another 
spring came with its warm winds, and the 
snow was gone, there were nine strong, well- 
grown young field-mice ready to go out into 
the woodland and find mates and build nests 
of their own. 



THE END 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



otc 2S mi 



DEC 2S 1911 







1£ 






